The proximity of the African continent to the Canary Islands means that encounters between Canarian fishermen and migrants traveling to Europe in search of a better life are frequent. The fishing boat Mar Azul had left to fish at 6 in the morning this Tuesday from the Port of Arrecife heading to the Marine Reserve of La Graciosa, when at about 8 in the morning its crew spotted a pneumatic boat with 53 people heading to the area of Los Cocoteros. On it was a pregnant woman who had died.
"They were going to enter where everyone drowned a few years ago, they were going to the same place and the sailor Tomás warned me that they were going to arrive there," says Francisco Hernández. Realizing how dangerous it was for the boat to arrive on its own to the coast, he decided to go towards them. "We saw that they were going against the rocks, above Charco del Palo," says the captain before the microphones of Radio Lanzarote - Onda Cero.
The captain of the fishing boat stayed with the occupants traveling aboard the pneumatic boat. "One of the occupants told me that there was a deceased woman, three minors and two pregnant women," says Hernández. According to Emergencias, the possibility that the woman had died from a blow of water is being studied.
The migratory route to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest on the planet. "Unfortunately, everything does not always go well," lamented the manager of the Coordinating Center for Emergencies (CECOES), Enrique Espinosa, during his radio intervention due to the death of this occupant.