Spanish coast guards rescued 61 sub-Saharan migrants approaching Gran Canaria´s coast in a wooden boat on Tuesday (August 9), Reuters reports.
Late in the evening, coast guards reached the boat sailing four miles (6.5k) off Arguineguin port in the Atlantic Ocean and transferred the migrants to a rescue boat.
While the migrants, all of them male, were attended by emergency services, police found the body of a 19-year-old male under cover in the wooden boat.
According to Interior Ministry figures, more than 9,589 migrants have arrived in the Canary Islands by sea up to July 31 - a 27.3% increase over the same period last year.
Last year, some 4,400 people were lost at sea attempting to reach Spain, according to monitoring group Walking Borders.
A total of 22,316 migrants crossed by boat to the Canary Islands in 2021, a drop from the 23,271 who made the crossing in 2020, Spain interior ministry data reported.
