SPAIN: The bodies of 24 would-be immigrants were recovered from the sea yesterday by the Spanish hospital ship Esperanza del Mar (Hope of the Sea).
They drowned as they tried to reach the Canary Islands from Africa.
The search is continuing for more casualties who it is feared were in the flimsy wooden boat when it capsized 60 miles off the coast of Mauritania.
There were 123 other illegal immigrants arrested in two other small boats yesterday as they reached the resort of Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife, and more than 300 were detained on arrival on Tuesday.
Spanish officials report that some 800 men and women, some of them minors, have been detained in Grand Canary and Tenerife so far this week.
Spanish Civil Guard and naval boats are patrolling the area to prevent the arrival of more pateras, the name given to the flimsy boats used by the would-be immigrants.
"Now the weather has improved they are arriving as regularly as a train timetable," said the president of the Canary government, describing the situation as "a national emergency". He appealed to Madrid for help in looking after the new arrivals.
The temporary shelters where they are being housed are now swamped. A special airlift has been established to fly some of them to the peninsula, and disused military installations have been opened to house them, albeit in primitive conditions.
The Spanish secretaries of state for foreign affairs and interior, accompanied by an EU representative, will fly to Mauritania today to offer assistance to halt the invasion, including boats to patrol the coastline and help in establishing shelters for the arrivals.
Officials have reported that thousands - some say as many as half a million - men, women and children from Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast and other African countries are camping in Mauritania while they wait for a passage to Europe, although Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos says he thinks this figure is exaggerated.
Few of them will obtain work papers if they do reach Europe, and the majority will be deported. One man from Senegal who has made three crossing attempts said yesterday: "I want to go to Europe or die in the attempt."
Until recently the coastline of northern Morocco was the favoured route from Africa to Europe. However, after pressure from Spain and the EU, the Moroccan government has clamped down on human traffic, often by adopting brutal methods such as driving would-be immigrants into the desert and abandoning them to their fate.
This has forced many to embark on longer and more hazardous journeys from the coast of the western Sahara and Mauritania to reach their goal.