3 immigrants die, 1 missing after dinghy overturns in Straits of Gibraltar

MADRID, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Three sub-Saharan immigrants were killed and one is still missing after the dinghy they were attempting to cross from Morocco to Spain in overturned in the Straits of Gibraltar, Spanish Maritime Rescue Services confirmed on Wednesday.

Maritime Rescue said that six people were travelling in the dinghy when it overturned in worsening weather conditions five miles to the south of the port of Tarifa in southwest Spain and that a rescue helicopter was initially able to save one who were floating in the water.

This person informed them he had been travelling with five others, one of whom was later pickup alive from the sea close to where the first rescue took place.

They also recovered three bodies from the sea and continue searching for the sixth person, although hopes are fading for their survival.

Earlier in the day the rescue vessel "Luz de Mar" had rescued eight more immigrants, including six men, a woman and a baby, who were taken to the port of Algeciras, while in another intervention 32 sub-Saharan Africans, among them four women, were picked up from another dinghy in an area known as the Alboran Sea, between Spain and Morocco and taken to the port of Almeria in southeast Spain.

The past weekend saw the bodies of a further two immigrants discovered close to the coast of Cadiz, one by Spanish Civil Guards and the other by a Portuguese naval patrol, and taken to Algeciras for possible identification.

In the first 11 months of 2017, around 19,000 immigrants have crossed from north Africa to Spain, more than twice the 8,000 who made the dangerous journey in 2016. Enditem