Four immigrants drown
2004-07-31 22:02
Cadiz - At least four illegal immigrants drowned on Saturday off the south coast of Spain, rescue services reported, adding the death toll was set to rise with a baby reported missing and believed drowned.
The four bodies found were those of two men believed to be Moroccan and two sub-Saharan Africans, a man and a woman.
Rescue services said that police had sighted a boat carrying 33 immigrants, 23 of them Moroccans, the others from sub-Saharan Africa, off Tarifa on Spain's Atlantic coast.
A rescue vessel was sent to the scene. Seeing it, the people on the boat stood up, destabilising their craft and causing several passengers to fall.
The other passengers were thought to have swum ashore to safety.
Thousands of would-be immigrants try every year to cross the Strait of Gibraltar for the European mainland, barely 20 kilometres from the Moroccan north coast, but dozens drown in the process.
Others attempt a far longer crossing of some 100 kilometres to the Canary Islands where police on Saturday said they had intercepted 114 would-be immigrants since early Friday.