A five-year-old girl of sub-Saharan origin died tonight while being evacuated by helicopter by the Air Force to Gran Canaria, along with a man and a woman from a boat in which they had spent 17 days lost in the Atlantic, police and 112 have reported.
The search and rescue (SAR) helicopter that picked them up from the merchant ship that had rescued them, the Cape Taweelah, arrived at the Doctor Negrín University Hospital of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria last night, around 11.50 pm.
The girl and the woman were already in very poor condition since they were helped by the merchant ship and went into cardiorespiratory arrest during the flight, of practically 500 kilometers. The SAR nurses of the Army tried to revive the two, but only succeeded with the adult woman.
The boat was found on Tuesday by a merchant ship en route in a point of the Atlantic located between Nuadibú (Mauritania) and Dajla (Sahara), two of the most frequent places of departure of boats and canoes to the Canary Islands, although at the moment it is ignored if it had left from that zone or was left adrift and was dragged during days towards that position by the current and the wind.