MADRID (AP) — Four migrants died off the coast in southern Spain after being forced to abandon the boat they were on, officials said Thursday.
The Spanish government press office in the southern province of Cadiz said that 31 other people from the boat, including six children, survived and four were taken to a hospital.
The press office reported that 27 passengers were evacuated Wednesday afternoon by those piloting the boat near Camposoto beach, where all four died. Eight others were forced to flee near another beach, he added.
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A video shot by a man who works in the area showed migrants being pushed overboard from the boat and others in the choppy waters trying to swim to shore.
Javier Gonzalez, who runs a nautical company, said that he and his son managed to rescue eight people. He said that they and other workers helped the migrants on the beach.
In a voice message to The Associated Press, Gonzalez said that no police officers or marine rescue personnel took part in in the initial rescue.
The boat’s drivers fled the scene, according to news reports. Police used drones to locate them, but to no avail, he said.
Officials said the migrants were from unspecified North African countries.
Smugglers force migrants off boats as they approach the Spanish coast so they can escape before police spot them.
The boat used on Wednesday was a speedboat used by drug traffickers between Spain and Morocco, according to the official Spanish news agency Efe.
“They are unscrupulous people and, when you don’t have scruples, it doesn’t matter if what they have to throw overboard are bales of hashish or people,” Francisco Mena, president of the Campo de Gibraltar Alternative Anti-Drug Coordinator in Cadiz, told the agency.
Tens of thousands of immigrants from sub-Saharan countries try every year to succeed in Spain aboard large open boats brought from northwest Africa. Most head to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, while others try to cross the Mediterranean. Sea to mainland Spain.
Several thousand more people are known to have died on this perilous journey.
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Hernán Muñoz contributed to this from Barcelona, Spain.
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Follow AP’s migration policy in https://apnews. com/hub/migration
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