'1,000 migrants died this year off Canaries'

More than 1,000 migrants have died trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands this year, the Red Cross estimated, as more and more Africans attempt to break into "Fortress Europe" by using ever longer sea routes.

Officially, 106 immigrants have died trying to reach the Canaries since late December, most sailing north from Mauritania. However, Jaime Bara, head of African affairs at the Spanish Red Cross, said yesterday that the real figure was far higher. "We estimate it is 10 times that number," he said.

Last week, dozens of migrants died in two shipwrecks off the Western Saharan and Mauritanian coasts, while on Tuesday scores of migrants were found alive in a boat that had drifted for three days off Mauritania, Spanish state radio reported.

Mauritania's Red Crescent yesterday put the number of those found alive in the boat off the West African coast at 75. The boat had put out a distress signal.