POLICE are investigating an alleged double rape onboard a migrant boat which arrived in Ibiza on Friday.
The disturbing reports come days after police confirmed they believe “at least 50” migrants were tortured and bundled overboard during another crossing to the Canary Islands.
AFPA ‘cayuco’ boat from Senegal with 136 migrants onboard arrives in the Canary Islands after being rescued by Spanish coastguard[/caption]
ReutersA rescue worker carries a migrant child off a Spanish coast guard vessel last month[/caption]
EPAThousands of migrants have been rescued at sea and taken to Spanish islands this year[/caption]
Two youngsters described as minors told police they were sexually assaulted by two men during a crossing from Africa.
They were taken to Can Misses Hospital in Ibiza town for medical checks, before being formally quizzed by police after reporting the alleged crimes when they reached dry land.
It’s not yet clear if whether anyone had been arrested in the investigation.
Spanish coastguards on Friday hauled in 29 migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa.
Their boat was first detect 45 miles south of Ibiza’s neighbouring island, Formentera.
It has not been confirmed whether the girls who alerted police were passengers on that vessel, thought to have started its journey in Algeria, or another.
Meanwhile, police in Gran Canaria said they believed “at least” 50 migrants were tortured and thrown overboard after being accused of witchcraft on a hellish boat crossing to Europe.
Allegations of mass high seas executions on board the overcrowded vessel first emerged at the start of the month, after 248 survivors were rescued off the coast of Africa and taken to the island they had been aiming for.
Passengers told of a cursed ordeal where fellow migrants were beaten up and shot after being accused of witchcraft.
People smugglers in charge of the boat reportedly turned on the group after the boat’s engine failed and it was left drifting for two weeks at sea with low supplies.
Police said last Wednesday that 19 suspects had been detained and released images of some of the detainees.
They also gave the first official account of what happened based on the results so far of the investigation into the nightmare Atlantic crossing.
Survivors of the apparent bloodbath were brought ashore at Arguineguin on Gran Canaria’s southern coast on August 25.
Their overcrowded wooded canoe, known as a cayuco, was spotted the previous day off the African city of Dakhla – 265 miles from its Canaries target.
All 19 men have been remanded to prison after appearing before a judge and continue to be investigated on suspicion of people trafficking, homicide, wounding and torture.
These are not the only grisly tales to have washed up on Spanish shores.
SolarpixSpanish police released images of men detained in their invest[/caption]
EPAMigrants disembark from a rescue boat in Lanzarote after being rescued[/caption]
In June, Spanish police confirmed they had launched an investigation after the bodies of five migrants were found bobbing in the sea off the Balearic Islands with their hands and feet bound.
Initial speculation centred on the possibility they could have been murdered and thrown overboard.
The families of the men who died, all Somalians, later revealed they were shackled in a death ritual after they perished from starvation as they tried to reach Europe.
They had been on a boat that was rescued in May by Spanish coastguards 62 miles from Alicante, with 16 male survivors suffering dehydration and other health problems and a dead man on board.
The vessel had left Algeria a fortnight earlier before it was left adrift following engine problems.
During their trip they ended up having to eat just one date a day and drink their own urine, with the men whose bodies were recovered from the Mediterranean said to have fatally opted to drink sea water to try to survive.
Red Cross chiefs said after their rescue: “One of the people rescued had eaten toothpaste because it was the only thing he had.
“He didn’t want to let go of the tube when he reached dry land.”
More than 125 rickety wooden boats known locally as pateras have reached Ibiza and Formentera so far this year with a total of 2,094 migrants on board.
Around half were Algerians and the rest sub-Saharan Africans.
Canary Islands migrant ’emergency’
OFFICIALS on the Canary Islands are demanding a state of emergency be declared to combat the growing migrant crisis.
Around 47,000 people arrived on the Spainish islands on small boats last year with government officials saying the number of unaccompanied minors has reached almost three times the official capacity.
This year alone, from January 1, to May 15, 10,882 people have reached the Canaries via maritime routes.
Many of these include young children with the government now admitting they are struggling to keep them all safe due to the volume of those arriving.
The popular holiday islands have a recognised capacity to house 1,737 migrant children.
But the number coming over from parts of West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean have skyrocketed recently with 5,017 minors now on the archipelago.
Concerned officials on the Canary Islands formally asked the Spanish government to declare a migration emergency after the figures were revealed.
A decree was reportedly approved last week by Spain’s Council of Ministers.
The Ministry of Youth and Children are now set to officially declare the emergency which will allow for a reform of the Immigration Law to be activated.
This will see the unhoused minors be transferred from the Canary Islands across to mainland Spain.
It comes as the government admitted the massive surge of immigrants arriving to the Canary Islands poses a “security risk”.
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