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A minimum of 9 dead, 48 missing out on after migrant boat capsizes in Spain's Canary Islands

At least nine migrants died and 48 are missing after their boat capsized early on Saturday near the Spanish island of El Hierro, rescue services said, in what threatens to be the most dangerous such occurrence in 30 years of such crossings to the Canary Islands.

The emergency situation services were able to rescue 27 of 84 migrants who were attempting to reach the Spanish coast, they included.

Spanish authorities said the migrants were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.

The rescue group got a call shortly after midnight local time from the boat, which lay around four miles east of El Hierro. It sank throughout the rescue, they said.

All the migrants on board focused in the exact same side of the boat during the rescue, that made it capsize. Everyone fell into the sea, said Manuel Barroso, head of Spain's maritime rescue services.

Wind and bad visibility made the rescue exceptionally challenging, he included.

9 bodies have been recuperated and the emergency services are still looking for the others.

Three other boats reached the Canary Islands during the night, bring 208 migrants.

Calm seas and gentle winds associated with late summer in the Atlantic Ocean off Western Africa has triggered a renewed rise of migrants, local authorities stated this month.

The route from Africa to the islands, which has a population of around 2.2 million, has seen a 154% surge in migrants this year, with 21,620 migrants crossing in the very first seven months, information from the European Union's border company Frontex revealed.

In some thirty years of migrant crossings to the islands the most dangerous shipwreck recorded to date happened in 2009 off the island of Lanzarote where 25 individuals passed away.

(source: Reuters)