Spanish police have launched an investigation into the deaths of four people after they were thrown from a moving boat into the sea a few metres off the southern coast of Andalucia.
The EU border agency says such tactics are becoming increasingly common. The people who died on Wednesday were among 27 passengers apparently forced to leave a speedboat by its drivers near Camposoto beach in the province of Cadiz. Another eight people remained near Sancti Petri beach.
All 35 people are believed to be migrants from North Africa. The other passengers forced from the boat, including six children, survived. Four people were taken to hospital, some with hypothermia.
Photos appeared on social media showing a black vessel approaching the shore as people were pushed off the side of the boat. Several people were already in the cold, choppy water trying to stay afloat.
The incident comes months after an internal report by Frontex, the EU’s border and coastguard agency, said smugglers were increasingly using speedboats to transport migrants from Morocco to Spain.
The El País newspaper reported that often as they approached European shores, drivers used violence to hurriedly dump or force migrants off the boats and turn back quickly to avoid interception by police. Eyewitnesses report that such tactics were used as the boat approached the shores of Cadiz on Wednesday.
Javier González, who runs a company offering windsurfing lessons, told reporters:
“We saw a drug trafficking boat arriving but they weren’t trafficking drugs but migrants. Suddenly, they began jumping and some were thrown.”
He said when he and others tried to help those in the water, the boat quickly floated away. González and his son rescued eight people, he added:
“One of them told us that they put a gun to him and told him that either he jumped or they would shoot him.”
González and his son made two trips in an inflatable boat to pull people out of the water. He added:
“They were all young, between 15 and 20 years old. Those who were able to talk thanked us. You cannot imagine their faces, they were terrified. They said they had paid €5,000 (£4,300) for this trip.”
Police said they were investigating the incident and have launched a search for the boat, which was described as a type of speedboat commonly used to transport drugs between Spain and Morocco.
