An Atlantic crossing appears to have ended in fatal disaster off the Canary Islands, with more than 80 people feared dead after 26 or 27 days at sea. Spanish authorities say a canoelike boat believed to have left Gambia in early August with more than 120 people aboard was spotted adrift about 75 miles south of Gran Canary on Wednesday and reached by a rescue vessel just after midnight, reports the London Times. Only 44 people were found alive, along with five bodies.
Survivors—reportedly from Gambia and Mali—told the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras that 83 people, including three women and a baby, died during the nearly monthlong voyage. Many of the rescued were severely dehydrated; three were airlifted to hospitals. The five bodies in the boat had to be left there, due to adverse weather conditions, per the AP. Survivors say that after provisions ran out, people started drinking water from the sea and falling ill. When people died, they’d be tossed overboard, until those still alive no longer had the strength to do so, the survivors add.
Officials from Spain’s Civil Guard say inscriptions on the hull match a craft that departed Gambia last month, per the Times. The Canary Islands’ regional leader, Fernando Clavijo, called the deaths “intolerable” and urged a national migration policy, warning that the Atlantic can’t be accepted as a “death trap.” Caminando Fronteras—which has not yet been able to verify how many people were originally on the boat, per the BBC—previously estimated more than 1,300 migrants died trying to reach Spain in the first five months of 2026, many along the perilous West Africa-Canaries route.