Over the past four days, at least 14 migrants have died and a further 47 have gone missing in four separate incidents in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, 230 people were rescued off Spain's Balearic Islands. The Mediterranean and Atlantic routes are two of the busiest -- and deadliest -- migration paths in the world.
According to the UN migration agency, 785 migrants from mostly western African countries died in the first eight months of this year trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands via the Atlantic. The month of August was particularly deadly. Meanwhile, over the weekend, some 340 migrants arrived on the island group on a single day.
The Spanish coast guard rescued more than 220 people travelling in small boats off the Canary Islands on Wednesday. The number of migrants risking the Atlantic route is rising again, and so are the deaths.
The route from Africa to Spain continues to claim victims. On Thursday last week, a young migrant died while attempting to swim from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, while a new shipwreck with 64 people missing was reported off the southern coast of Western Sahara.
The migrant route between Western Africa and the Canary Islands is proving to be increasingly deadly, as 29 people -- including seven children -- died last Friday out of a total of 55 who made the journey. Another incident took place Monday night, in which 13 people died off the coast of Fuerteventura. The NGO Caminando Fronteras denounced "a humanitarian crisis".
A woman who was the only person pulled from a sinking dinghy in the Atlantic Ocean has told her rescuers that the boat had left Africa a week earlier carrying 53 people.
Spanish authorities have arrested a man on charges of manslaughter, and aiding and abetting illegal immigration. He is accused of being responsible for an incident in the Atlantic that left at least 14 people dead.
A tally of the numbers of migrants who die or go missing during their journeys is impossible to establish definitively, since so many go without telling people, and travel via illegal means. Deaths at sea are even harder to trace, because many of the bodies are never recovered. The Atlantic Crossing from West Africa towards the Canaries is one of the worst routes for this.
Morocco's navy says it has rescued 344 migrants, including women and children, after their boats ran into difficulty in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Migrant arrivals to Spain are on track to match last year's numbers.
A young girl has died during a rescue operation to save migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands in a small boat. The boat, carrying 36 migrants, drifted for more than two weeks before it was found by a merchant tanker.
More than 40 migrants trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands from West Africa have reportedly died in shipwrecks in the past few days. Several hundred others made the crossing to arrive in Spanish territory.
Spanish police have arrested two men suspected of "steering and navigating" a migrant boat that capsized last week off the Spanish Canary Islands archipelago. Four bodies were recovered following the accident.