Rescues to the limit, a birth on board, long days adrift, hospital admissions by helicopter… The call canary route of migration experienced a new frenetic day in the early hours of Thursday in which six rescue boats and a Maritime Rescue helicopter were fully employed to help six cayucos with a total of 677 survivors – including 26 minors – on board. In their drift, between ten and fifty had lost their lives, according to the confusing statements of some migrants. The town of La Restinga (El Hierro) has once again been the scene of the migratory drama marked in the stories of the 250 survivors who disembarked at its dock in the early hours of Thursday.
At eight in the morning that day the passengers of the canoe numbered as 2C20240605 aboard the Guardamar Talia: 190 people of sub-Saharan origin in apparent good health. Two days earlier, on this same boat, a woman had given birth to a baby. Mother and son had been rescued by helicopter hours before.
But the tragedy was reserved for the cayuco 4C20240605, found adrift 111 kilometers southeast of the island. Its occupants had arrived at La Restinga at 3:50 in the morning aboard the Salvamar Adhara. They arrived “very affected, some could not contain their tears,” says an emergency team worker. There were 67 men and five women, all of sub-Saharan origin. Eleven of them had to be hospitalized in El Hierro, and three others were rushed to Tenerife aboard the helicopter. Helimer 201. One of them has not survived.
Gelmert Finol (EFE)
The survivors tearfully recounted to emergency workers the harsh circumstances of the journey. The boat had left Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, 13 days before its rescue. On the third day of the crossing they were left without an engine, at the mercy of the currents and the wind. According to Efe calculations, the 1,100 kilometers of the journey to El Hierro usually require seven days of navigation, which leads to thinking that the passage was ten adrift, and six of them without water or food.
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Civil Guard reports detail that upon arrival, several survivors admitted to having thrown bodies into the sea as they died. But the figure is disputed. Although reports indicate that there were between “nine and twelve deaths,” subsequent statements from several of the survivors at the Temporary Care Center for Foreigners (CATE) on the island suggest that it could have been much higher. These testimonies affirm that between 110 and 120 people left for the Canary Islands, which would expand the range of missing persons to a range of between 40 and 50 people, including women and minors. To these victims is added another, who has already died. hospitalized in Spain a few hours after arriving: a sub-Saharan man between 30 and 35 years old who lost his life due to electrolyte decompensation, which suggests that he was forced to drink seawater during the crossing. He was buried the same Thursday in the Valverde municipal cemetery under the code Immigrant No. 119 R3.
Jupol complaint
The situation in El Hierro has led the Jupol union to charge this Friday in a statement against the “serious situation” of immigration that exists in the Canary Islands and especially on the island, which is pushing the national police of Tenerife “to the limit” who are They are compulsorily displaced to the island to cover the security services of the CATE installed on the island “which have been carried out in a precarious manner and without any foresight.” The union also warns of the police “collapse” in a workforce “affected by burnout syndrome at work” and that reduces citizen security on the island of Tenerife.
The union also denounces the “precarious situation” in which the police officers who serve these immigrants upon their arrival work, “in a situation of obvious numerical inferiority, something that puts the officers at risk given the lack of security that exists in the facilities.” in which they carry out custody.”
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