Four migrants drown off Morocco trying to reach Europe

Four Moroccan migrants trying to reach the European Union have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, officials and relatives said Friday.

Three other migrants were rescued after their vessel sank off the resort of Skheirat, south of the capital Rabat, on Thursday.

“We are in shock. My cousin, who was 29, was among the dead,” said a relative of one of those who drowned.

“They were all Moroccan. We had no idea he was going to try to make the voyage.”

Officials said the migrants’ vessel was believed to have had a capacity of up to 20 people, and a search was continuing for any other survivors.

Fishermen in the area said the coast between Rabat and Casablanca was a regular jumping-off point for migrants trying to reach mainland Spain.

Further south, along the Moroccan-controlled coast of the disputed Western Sahara, the goal is normally Spain’s Atlantic Canary Islands.

Authorities in the territory’s main city of Laayoune detained 106 migrants in two groups as they prepared to put to sea on Friday, Morocco’s state-run MAP news agency reported.

Authorities said they had thwarted other attempted departures from elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast, making multiple arrests and seizing several boats.

On Thursday, Moroccan authorities said they had intercepted a boat 30 kilometres off Laayoune Port carrying 114 migrants trying to reach the Canaries.

A total of 27,136 migrants reached Spain between January and the end of September, a 53.8 percent jump on the same period last year, according to Spanish interior ministry figures.

The Portuguese coastguard said the navy had picked up 37 migrants on Thursday, most of them Moroccans, according to Portuguese media reports.