A new humanitarian effort is underway this Thursday morning in the sea off Lanzarote. Approximately 59 migrants were traveling in a rubber dinghy towards the island of volcanoes when it was intercepted at dawn by a merchant ship 45 nautical miles east of Lanzarote.
Before Maritime Rescue services arrived, several people jumped into the sea to try to reach the merchant ship. For the moment, there are at least five people missing, according to Caminando Fronteras.
The Polimnia coast guard vessel rescued 52 people at 1:25 a.m. who were waiting in the Zodiac and also managed to pull another person from the water. Meanwhile, the merchant ship saved the lives of two other people who were also in the sea.
With the rescue of the vessel and the removal of three people from the water, a total of 55 migrants arrived at the Port of Arrecife at approximately 5:00 AM.
The emergency was coordinated by the Maritime Rescue Center of Las Palmas under the direction of the Maritime Captaincy of Las Palmas.
However, after speaking with a translator, the survivors have indicated that at least three other people are missing. For this reason, Maritime Rescue has announced that it is carrying out a search operation in the area where both vessels carried out the rescue during the early hours of the morning to try to locate the survivors. For its part, Caminando Fronteras has put the number of missing people at five, four men and one woman.
In the area, the Sasemar 103 plane is trying to locate two other precarious vessels traveling towards Lanzarote.
