Boat containing 20 dead bodies discovered off the coast of Brazil

The fate of certain immigrant boats that fail to reach the Canaries has been underlined by the discovery of a boat containing 20 dead bodies off the coast of Brazil, on the other side of the Atlantic.

Local fishermen found the vessel, which they initially thought had come from Haiti. However, the type of boat has caused observers to believe it comes from Mauretania, on Africa’s west coast.

The long and extremely dangerous route to the Canaries from Mauretania has increased in popularity recently, with successful migrants usually arriving at the western Canary Islands of Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro.  Several boats have already disappeared without trace,

Arrivals on Lanzarote tend to come from locations further north in Morocco or Western Sahara. Yesterday, four pateras containing 158 migrants were intercepted yesterday after a month when no arrivals occurred, almost certainly due to recent bad weather conditions.