Five Dead on Boat After 27-Day Atlantic Ordeal as Survivors Tell of Drinking Seawater After Provisions Ran Out

Five men have died and more than 80 others are feared dead after a migrant boat was found off Spain's Canary Islands, as survivors described spending 27 days in the Atlantic and drinking seawater after food and water ran out.

Spanish maritime rescue services said the wooden vessel, which left The Gambia in early August bound for the Canaries, was located roughly 120km south-west of Arguineguín, a port on Gran Canaria.

Rescuers found 44 survivors and the bodies of five men on board. Caminando Fronteras, a migrant rights organisation, believes more than 100 people, including women and a baby, originally set out on the crossing, though Spanish authorities have not confirmed the exact number.

Survivors Tell of 27 Days Adrift Without Food or Water

The Maritime Safety and Rescue Society said the boat was spotted drifting late on Wednesday in seas with 20-knot winds and waves of up to 2.5 metres.

Three men in critical condition were airlifted by helicopter to hospital on Gran Canaria, while the remaining 41 survivors were brought ashore by rescue vessel in the early hours of Thursday. Rescuers said they were unable to bring the five bodies ashore because of conditions at sea.

All those found alive were men from sub-Saharan Africa, according to Maritime Rescue. The Red Cross in the Canaries said the group were from Mali and Senegal, and that some were minors.

José Antonio Rodríguez Verona, a Red Cross spokesman, told the Associated Press the men were severely dehydrated, disoriented, and 'collapsing or vomiting' as they reached land after weeks at sea.

Survivors told the Red Cross they had spent about 27 days in the Atlantic after setting off from The Gambia with more than 100 people aboard. They said provisions ran out quickly, and some fell ill after drinking seawater. According to Rodríguez Verona, bodies were thrown overboard as people died, until survivors became too weak to lift them.

Helena Maleno, founder of the Spanish migrant rights organisation Caminando Fronteras, said her group's information — which is compiled from distress calls and relatives' testimony and has not been independently verified — suggested 127 people had departed The Gambia and that 83 may have died, including four women and a baby.

Spanish authorities have not confirmed how many people were aboard when the boat left West Africa, nor the nationalities of the dead. An investigation is under way.

Atlantic Route Branded Deadliest Passage to Spain

Caminando Fronteras says the Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is the deadliest stretch of the Africa-Europe migration corridor, recording 1,317 deaths on routes to Spain in the first five months of this year, including 142 women and 129 children. Nearly half of those deaths occurred on the Atlantic path to the Canaries.

Similar incidents have affected boats from The Gambia in recent years. In August 2023, around 150 people were reported killed or missing after a Gambian vessel capsized off Mauritania, and in July 2024 more than a dozen people were confirmed dead and around 150 reported missing after another crossing.

Migration Policy Under Pressure as Canaries and Ceuta Crises Collide

Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands regional government, said on X that it was 'intolerable that lives continue to be lost', adding that the islands could not 'get used to or accept as normal the fact that the Atlantic continues to be a death trap'.

He called for a 'better state migration policy', saying: 'We cannot continue managing migration from crisis to crisis. We are talking about lives and dignity.'

The latest deaths come as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez faces pressure over migration policy, after an estimated 72,000 people crossed from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in two days in July 2025, prompting protests and diplomatic tension with Italy.