GRAN CANARIA, Sept 18 \u2013 Spanish police say they have arrested 19 people suspected of murder and torture after more than 50 went missing from a migrant boat that was travelling from Senegal to the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n
Police suspect some of the victims were accused of being \u201cwitches\u201d after several incidents during the journey, including engine failure, bad weather and food shortages.<\/p>\n
The wooden vessel was rescued south of Gran Canaria on 24 August with 248 survivors on board, the Spanish National Police said.<\/p>\n
But officials believe that about 300 people were originally on the boat, and that some had been thrown overboard.<\/p>\n
Survivors told police that some of their fellow passengers began \u201cattacking dozens of people, beating and abusing them in various ways\u201d, a police statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases, they threw migrants into the sea alive and refused to rescue those who fell in by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suspected killings were also documented \u201csimply because some people protested or expressed their dissatisfaction with the conditions of the voyage\u201d, the statement said.<\/p>\n
One male passenger died in hospital after being found seriously ill when the vessel was intercepted, according to police.<\/p>\n
Those on board included people from Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau, local media reported.<\/p>\n
All 19 suspects are in pretrial detention facing charges of facilitating irregular immigration, homicide, assault and torture.<\/p>\n
Spain is one of the frontline entry points for irregular migration into Europe, with most entering via the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n
Almost 47,000 migrants reached the archipelago in 2024, setting a record for a second year, but numbers have been far lower so far this year, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GRAN CANARIA, Sept 18 \u2013 Spanish police say they have arrested 19 people suspected of murder and torture after more than 50 went missing from a migrant boat that was travelling from Senegal to the Canary Islands. Police suspect some of the victims were accused of being \u201cwitches\u201d after several incidents during the journey, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}