1 migrant dead, 14 rescued off Spanish coast

An ailing would-be immigrant died while 14 other illegal immigrants were rescued as they tried to make landfall on Spain's southern shore, the Spanish coastguard said Wednesday. The coastguard dispatched a boat to assist the migrants who were approaching the coast on two boats, and then ordered a helicopter to transport one of the passengers who was in poor health to hospital. "Health services certified his death," the Spanish coastguard later said in a statement, without giving further details. The remaining 14 migrants were given blankets and transported by boat to the port of Tarifa in the Spanish province of Cadiz which is located across the Strait of Gibraltar facing Morocco. Spanish police then took them to a detention centre for undocumented migrants. Eleven migrants, including two children, who were trying to reach Europe died Tuesday after their boat capsized off the coastal town of Hoceima in northern Morocco. The boat had set off from Nador, 130 kilometres (80 miles) to the east, either headed for the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla, or mainland Spain. Thousands of illegal migrants from Africa regularly attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain on makeshift boats each year. Some travel thousands of kilometres overland, being handed from smuggler to smuggler, ending up at one of many ports in northern Africa for a cramped and treacherous sea crossing to European soil. The number of migrants who arrived on Spanish shores by boat last year totalled 3,804, a 30 percent drop from 2012, according to interior ministry figures.