Rescuers save 86 migrants from boat near Canary Islands

AFP :
Spain’s coastguard said Monday it rescued 86 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa aboard a boat near the Canary Islands that had been spotted earlier in the day by a rescue plane.
The Salvamento Maritimo coastguard service said they had found the boat with six women and 80 men on board as rescuers were searching for a missing migrant boat that had “left Senegal with around 200 people on board”.

It did not indicate the ages of those rescued.
When a rescue plane spotted the vessel about 71 nautical miles south of the island of Gran Canaria, it was initially thought to have “around 200 people on board”, a spokeswoman said.
“We can’t be 100% sure but it’s likely it is the same boat,” she said.

But the coastguard later acknowledged that the estimate by the plane’s crew was incorrect.
“It is difficult to determine the number of people from the air,” she later told AFP.
A rescue ship brought the migrants to the port of Arguineguin on Gran Canaria, where they were greeted by Red Cross workers who provided them with medical care.