(AP) Spanish police said Wednesday that they have arrested two people for their alleged responsibility in the deaths of more than 20 migrants who perished last month while trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Canary Islands.
Police said in a statement that they detained the suspected human trafficker and the suspected captain of the boat carrying the migrants, which spent 13 days adrift before Spanish rescue services reached it on June 30 and found 29 survivors.
Police believe that between 52-60 people had boarded the boat from its departure point in Dakhla, a coastal town in the territory of Western Sahara. Among the dead was a 5-year-old girl who perished while aboard a rescue helicopter en route to a hospital on the Spanish islands.
