Three killed and 41 rescued in capsized patera off coast of Tenerife
Two women and a man have died and another 41 people have been rescued from the sea alive after a patera capsized off the coast of Porís de Abona, in Tenerife, when a rescue boat was on it’s way to pick them up, according to a spokesperson from Maritime Rescue this lunchtime.
The Salvamar Alpheratz, the first rescue boat to arrive in the area, has brought one deceased and 36 survivors (30 men, four children and a baby) to the port of Los Cristianos, and the fishing boat "Fani", which was the first to spot the patera at 8.35am this morning (Friday), has taken two deceased women and five survivors to the Porís de Abona dock.
According to emergency services, a pregnant woman has been evacuated by helicopter to a hospital and four other occupants of the boat have received health care for mild hypothermia on land in Porís.
The Salvamar Tenerife rescue boat and the Punta Salinas tugboat are still deployed in the area where the patera was located, with the support of the fishing vessels Nuevo Moby Dick, Nuevo San Sebastián and Amanecer, in case there could be any more castaways. In the rescue operation, the Helimer helicopter, from Maritime Rescue, and another from the Canary Islands Government have also been mobilized.
With these three new deaths, the cumulative death toll so far this year from the so-called ‘Canary Route’ of immigration amounts to 34, according to statistics kept by UNHCR. Of these, there is direct evidence of 22 deaths in the Canary Islands, either because their bodies were in the cayucos, because they died after reaching land, or because their companions stated that they perished during the journey and were thrown into the sea.