Eleven migrants found dead in boat off Spain: coastguard

Eleven migrants have been found dead in a boat in the sea off southern Spain along with 33 survivors, the Spanish coastguard said Thursday.

A coastguard spokeswoman told AFP that rescuers had taken the migrants, who came from sub-Saharan Africa, to the Spanish port of Almeria early Thursday.

She said rescue services had been searching for the boat for two days in the sea between Spain's southern Andalusia region and the north of Morocco.

"Eleven people were found dead on board and 33 alive" -- four women and 29 men, she said.

There was no indication that minors were among the dead or the survivors.

The coastguard is searching for three other boats in the same area, each with between 50 and 55 migrants on board.

Spain has become one of the main points of entry into Europe for irregular migration, ahead of Greece and Italy.

The International Organization for Migration says that more than 55,000 migrants have arrived in Spain by sea this year, and that 744 have died trying, more than three times as many as in 2017.