Twenty people, including minors, were rescued at dawn in the Strait of Gibraltar while trying to reach the coast of Spain from Morocco on two speedboats, Spanish authorities said this Saturday, Efe news agency reported.
According to information from the Spanish maritime rescue services provided to the Efe agency, the rescue maneuvers began at 03:00 local time (02:00 in Lisbon), when the Tarifa Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Cadiz received several calls warning of the presence of boats in the area .
At 06:40 local time, the rescue ship Salvamar Arcturus located one of the speedboats, an inflatable pleasure craft carrying ten men of North African origin.
At 7:25 a.m., the Salvamar Enif spotted a second boat, also with ten men from North Africa.
All the rescued were taken to the port of Algeciras in good condition, according to the Efe agency, whose sources indicated that some of the rescued were minors, but could not confirm the exact number.
Also this Saturday, three sub-Saharan migrants managed to illegally enter Spain’s Ceuta enclave after they managed to jump over a ten-metre-high double border barrier with Morocco.
According to Efe, they are three young people from the Sudan and the Republic of Guinea, who were eventually transferred to the Temporary Residence Center for Immigrants (CETI) with a capacity of 512 people and which currently accommodates just over 200 immigrants.