Morocco has rescued 352 migrants trying to reach the Canary Islands in the last 24 hours

The Royal Moroccan Navy on Thursday rescued 352 people, all sub-Saharan Africans, who were on board two boats sailing in the Atlantic bound for the Canary Islands. 

The first boat was intercepted 300 kilometres south of the city of Dakhla, in the far south of Western Sahara, with 290 people (200 Senegalese and 66 Gambians, among other nationalities) and two corpses on board, the official Moroccan agency MAP reported. 

These people set sail from the Senegalese coast six days earlier for the Canary Islands, the note indicates, adding that the two corpses were transferred to the morgue of the Hassan II hospital in Dakhla, without giving details of their nationality or the cause of their death.

The second boat, which left the Gambian coast on the 19th with 62 people on board (38 Gambians, 22 Senegalese and two Malians), was intercepted the same day 240 kilometres southwest of Dakhla. 

Last Monday, the Royal Navy rescued another 189 people, all Senegalese, including 18 women and 29 minors, on board two boats that had left the Senegalese coast on the 2nd and 17th of this month, bound for the Canary Islands. 

The people rescued alive in these two operations were handed over, after receiving medical attention, to the Royal Gendarmerie in the port of this Saharawi city for the necessary administrative formalities, reports the MAP. 

A total of 1,606 migrants arrived last weekend in the Spanish Canary Islands, rescued by rescue boats as they tried to reach land in precarious boats from the African coast, across the Atlantic.