‘WE’RE GOING TO SPAIN, LADS, ONE WAY OR RUDDER’
Three illegal migrants who arrived in Spain after enduring an exhausting 11-day ocean journey from Nigeria on the rudder of a fuel tanker will be sent straight back to Africa.
The men were found when the Alithini II docked in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria.
A photo published by the Spanish coastguard shows them sitting on the rudder of the oil tanker’s stern, their feet just above the waterline.
“They were tired and had symptoms of hypothermia and when they arrived at the port they were attended by health services,” the coastguard said in a statement.
Local emergency services said the three men were dehydrated and needed hospital care.
The three migrants were on Tuesday returned to the Malteseflagged ship, which will take them back to Nigeria, a spokesman for the central government’s representative in the Canary Islands said.
A ship’s operator must take care of any stowaways and “has to bring them back to their port of origin,” the spokesman said.
“If there are stowaways on a plane, the airline is responsible for them.”
Officials gave no details about the nationality of the migrants or if they had requested asylum in Spain.
The Alithini II departed Nigeria’s largest city Lagos for Las Palmas – a journey of more than 2700 nautical miles – on November 17, according to maritime tracking websites.
Nigerian stowaways have made the same perilous long journey on rudders before. A 14-year-old boy travelled from Lagos to Gran Canaria in 2020 on a 15-day journey on the rudder of a fuel tanker. Also that year, four men were found on the rudder of a Norwegian oil tanker.