At least nine children and six adults are known to have died on board an immigrant ship headed for Spain from Africa. 33 survivors were found on board a boat along with the body of a woman just 50 km short of the old Islamic city of Almeria in Spain in the  early hours. The bodies of the children had been previously been thrown overboard.

The survivors were reported to be all suffering from dehydration.

The Spanish Interior Minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, told press that he was "concerned by the rise in recent weeks in arrivals of migrants on Spanish shores on boats from Africa"he linked the increase in migrants to the world shortage of food and  the rise in the cost of food in Africa. "If the situation is bad in Europe, in Africa it is very bad," he said.