Reports claim that perilous crossings from North Africa to the Canaries have increased in the recent past after checks on the Mediterranean routes were tightened. One such case that came into the limelight included three men who survived the 11-day voyage from Nigeria to Canary Island by sitting on the ship’s rudder. The stowaways spent nearly two weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean by balancing on the tank’s rudder just above the waterline.
According to Marine Traffic, a website that tracks shipping, the Maltese-flagged Alithini II arrived in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria on Monday afternoon after an 11-day journey from Lagos in Nigeria. On their arrival, Spain’s coast guard came to their aid, as they were attended to by the health services for dehydration and hypothermia, stated reports.
In an image shared by Salvamento Marítimo, a sea search, and rescue agency that operates in Spain, three men could be spotted sitting on the rudder and apparently unable to lie down or even sit up straight due to the limited space under the vessel’s hull. The survivors were from Nigeria, reported Washington Post.
“This afternoon, the Salvamar Nunki rescued three stowaways located on the rudder blade of the ship Alithini II, anchored in the docks of the port of Las Palmas and coming from Nigeria. They have been transferred to the port and treated by health services," read the tweet alongside the photo posted by the Spanish coast guard.
La Salvamar Nunki ha rescatado esta tarde a tres polizones localizados en la pala del timón del buque Althini II, fondeado en entrediques del puerto de Las Palmas y procedente de Nigeria. Han sido trasladados al puerto y atendidos por servicios sanitarios. pic.twitter.com/1Ei1FieAV3— SALVAMENTO MARÍTIMO (@salvamentogob) November 28, 2022
“The survival odyssey is far beyond fiction…It is not the first and it will not be the last. Stowaways do not always have the same luck,” tweeted Txema Santana, a journalist and migration adviser to the Canary Islands government
As mentioned, this isn’t the first time that such cases of people stowing away on ships have been reported in that area. In October 2020, four people stowed away on the rudder of an oil tanker from Lagos when they survived for ten days before being discovered by the police in Las Palmas.
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