The tuna boat that ran aground this morning in Órzola, in the north of Lanzarote, with five men of Moroccan nationality on board is a patera boat that was used by its occupants to arrive irregularly to the Canary Islands, according to the first indications collected by the National Police.
Agents of the Arrecife Police Station (Lanzarote) have already interrogated the five people rescued from the boat by the firefighters of Lanzarote: four adults and a minor, as confirmed to EFE by a spokesperson for the Superior Headquarters of Police of the Canary Islands.
In parallel, the Civil Guard has opened an investigation into the origin of the boat and its ownership, which will complete the testimonies of its occupants obtained by the Police.
The fishing boat is a tuna boat of about fifteen meters in length, with a Moroccan flag on the bridge, which ran aground on a shallow rocky bottom off the coast of Órzola known as Charco de La Condesa, and caught fire after its crew were taken to safety.
The rescued told the firefighters that they had not eaten for five days. That statement, added to their weak appearance and the strangeness of the stranding, made them suspect from the first moment that it might not be a mere fishing accident.
The Police have declined for the moment to offer more details about the point from which the tuna boat departed and the circumstances of its journey, pending completion of the file with the investigations about the boat that the Civil Guard is carrying out.
The use of fishing boats as a way to irregularly access Spain is not common in the Canary Route, but there are some precedents, some of them very recent, also occurred in Lanzarote. In fact, on June 18, 14 crew members of another Moroccan boat, one of them a minor, requested political asylum upon arriving at the port of Arrecife, the capital of the island. To which is added that last August 49 stowaways arrived on the island in a tugboat.
