CANARY ISLANDS:Dozens of African migrants were lost overboard in heavy seas yesterday as the Spanish coast guard tried to rescue them near the end of a dangerous voyage to the Canary Islands in a wooden boat.
About 100 Africans hoping to migrate to Europe were flung into the open sea after their long, canoe-shaped open vessel, known as a cayuco, capsized just as the Spanish coast guard drew alongside to take them aboard before dawn.
Coast guards threw life jackets to them and pulled 48 survivors from the water, government officials said.
But more than 50 people were believed lost in the dark without life jackets in rough seas about 89 nautical miles southwest of Tenerife.
"A very big wave hit the cayuco from the side just as a lot of the people on board had stood up, and that toppled the boat over," said José Segura, the Spanish national government representative in the Canary Islands.
Two merchant ships joined four coast guard vessels, a helicopter and an aircraft to search for them, officials said.
But survival would be difficult in such conditions.
Authorities believe thousands of Africans died last year attempting to reach the Canaries, hundreds of miles from the African coast. Most disappeared at sea without trace, bodies sometimes washing up days later on African shores.
Often brightly painted, cayucos are powered by large outboard motors and their bare hulls offer little shelter to occupants who sometimes die of hypothermia.
The number of boats ferrying migrants to the Canaries, Spain's southernmost territory, has fallen by almost two thirds so far this year since the Spanish government stepped up repatriations of illegal migrants and the EU started maritime patrols.
About 31,000 migrants made it to the Canaries last year, making illegal immigration one of Spain's biggest political issues.
Prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero says he welcomes legal migrants but that all those who enter Spain without permission will be sent home.
- (Reuters)