Spain arrests traffickers accused of killing asylum seekers

MADRID: Spanish police said on Sunday they had arrested seven people smugglers accused of murdering four migrant during a sea crossing in November from the African mainland to the Canary Islands.

The seven were detained at an emergency accommodation centre on the island of Tenerife, they said.

Police described them as the “captains” of a vessel that docked in the island of El Hierro on November 3, with 207 asylum seekers on board.

“They are suspected of killing four of the people, two days before the boat reached the Canaries coast,” they said.

Police launched an investigation into the deaths as a result of witness accounts from migrants, who described the journey as “a nightmare”.

According to the probe, the boat left the coast of Gambia and made a stopover on the Senegalese island of Bassoul, where the majority of the passengers boarded.

After three days at sea, three traffickers appointed to maintain order onboard took it upon themselves to punish some of the asylum seekers.

One of the passengers “who was probably affected by the harshness of the journey, became disoriented, which led the captains to blame him for all the problems of the crossing and start beating him and those who tried to defend him”, police said.

The traffickers then “apparently decided to murder four of the migrants to frighten the rest”.

Three of the victims have been identified and their families notified.

Of the asylum seekers who survived the voyage to the Canaries, one was taken to hospital for surgery to his chest after what police said may have been a knife wound.