Tragedy in the Balearics: 17 migrants die after 15 days at sea
Two survivors rescued off Mallorca, another boat with 15 migrants found off Ibiza. Spain announces €25 million for Ceuta.
Two survivors rescued off Mallorca, another boat with 15 migrants found off Ibiza. Spain announces €25 million for Ceuta.
Seventeen migrants lost their lives during an attempt to reach the Balearic Islands after their boat drifted at sea for 15 days. According to a report by Spanish authorities, based on the testimony of two survivors, the boat departed from the North African coast with 19 people on board, but over the two weeks at sea, 17 of them died.
The first rescue occurred early Tuesday morning, August 4, 2026, when a patrol boat spotted a small vessel around 3:00 a.m. about 12.6 miles southwest of Mallorca. On board were only two living individuals of Maghrebi origin. They were taken to Son Espases Hospital in Palma de Mallorca with symptoms of severe dehydration and malnutrition.
Following their statement, the Maritime Service dispatched a helicopter to search the area and issued a warning to vessels to look for any survivors or victims of the shipwreck. In a second operation, at dawn around 5:15 a.m., another boat with 15 migrants, also from the Maghreb, was rescued approximately 30 miles southeast of Ibiza.
On the same day, the Spanish government announced an emergency package of €25 million for the autonomous city of Ceuta, intended for the care of unaccompanied minors who entered the enclave last Thursday, July 30, 2026. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, Elma Saiz, stated in Madrid that this amount adds to the "5.5 million distributed at the sectoral conference on children last July," when a total of €35 million was shared among all autonomous communities.
Saiz could not provide an exact number of migrant minors in Ceuta, but data from the Ministry of the Interior indicate that more than 60,000 people crossed the border from Morocco, with at least 90 deaths.
Against this backdrop, Italy proposed at an EU meeting on Tuesday the establishment of migrant centers outside the Union's borders, with the cost to be borne by the European Union. This proposal, along with the simultaneous crisis in Spain, represents the first major test for the new EU Migration Pact, whose rules also affect Croatia as a member state.
