SENEGAL: Spanish hospital ship lands rescued African migrants in Senegal

Exhausted after days at sea, 89 African migrants rescued from a sinking boat in the Atlantic while trying to reach Europe. are put ashore in Senegal by a Spanish hospital ship. A Spanish hospital ship began disembarking a group of African illegal migrants in Senegal on Thursday (April 26) after they had been rescued from their sinking craft off the coast of West Africa while trying to reach Europe. The 89 migrants, including at least two women, had stormed a Spanish fishing vessel that went to their aid in the Atlantic off Mauritania on Monday (April 23), before being transferred to the Spanish hospital ship Esperanza del Mar. It was the latest migrant problem to confront Spanish authorities, who have been trying to stem a flood of thousands of illegal job seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands in often flimsy boats. They are desperate to escape poverty and find better lives in Europe. More than 30,000 illegal migrants, including a large number from Senegal, came ashore last year in the Canary Islands after making long, risky voyages in open boats from the coast of West Africa. A Reuters reporter at Dakar port saw Senegalese Red Cross workers and firemen helping some of the exhausted migrants, dressed in blue casual clothes, off the white-painted Esperanza del Mar. Suffering from exposure and broken limbs, some were carried on stretchers to waiting ambulances. Spain said it had obtained permission from Senegal's government for the Esperanza del Mar to disembark the migrants in Dakar, after the West African nation's northern neighbour Mauritania refused to take them. The migrants who had scrambled from their leaking wooden boat on Monday aboard the Spanish fishing vessel Segundo San Rafael, told their rescuers they had already thrown overboard the bodies of 11 people who died during their voyage. The Esperanza del Mar had also brought back the bodies of two more who died. In another incident involving Africans trying to reach the Canary Islands, two migrants were found dead on a boat carrying 69 people which arrived off the southern coast of Tenerife, emergency services said on Thursday. Other passengers, all men, were in relatively good condition. In a diplomatic offensive in West Africa to try to halt the flood of illegal migrants, Madrid has signed a series of cooperation accords with regional governments offering increased aid in return for help to stop clandestine migration. Spanish officials say they are frustrated by the low level of cooperation from African governments, and say they also need more help from their European Union allies to close the door on thousands of illegal job-seekers heading for Europe.

ITN Source | April 27, 2007

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