The Salvamento Marítimo (Maritime Rescue) rescued three stowaways on Monday, found on the rudder blade of an oil tanker that had just arrived in the Port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, having left eleven days earlier from Lagos (Nigeria). They were picked up this Tuesday by the Salvamar Nunki in the port of the capital of Gran Canaria, having been sighted in a precarious position outside the ship’s hull, with their feet hanging barely half a metre from the surface of the water.
They were given attention first at the sports dock, by an emergency medical assistance team, as soon as they disembarked ashore, but they were immediately referred to the Hospital Doctor Negrín (two of them) and Hospital Insular (the third), due to their health situations. They have all been hospitalised with moderate dehydration.
The three migrants were traveling clandestinely on a Maltese-flagged oil tanker, the Alithini II, which left Lagos on the 17th of November, according to maritime data.
At the mercy of the sea
They were found on a small space located on the upper part of the rudder blade, on the outside of the hull, under the stern, out in the open and at the mercy of the sea.
It is not the first time that stowaways have been detected in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in such a dangerous part of the ship: in November 2020, three other people were found on the rudder blade of the Ocean Princess II, under a San Vincent and the Grenadines flag; and a month earlier, another three were discovered on the Champion Puga, a Norwegian tanker. Both ships had sailed from Lagos.
