Moroccan Migrant Recounts Harrowing Rescue at Sea Near Canary Islands

In his podcast "Las caras del mar", published every two weeks on the occasion of his 30th birthday, Salvamento shared the story of Abdel, a Moroccan who was rescued by the service, as well as the 30 other passengers on board the makeshift boat that was transporting them from Dakhla, Morocco to the Canary Islands on December 15, 2020. That day, the maritime rescue service rescued 133 people from three boats. Haouri’s boat was the third rescue of the day. He and his unfortunate companions had already spent two and a half days at sea.

"It was horrible. You try to sleep to feel nothing. You have no idea what’s going to happen to you, where you are and where you’re going," Haouri confides to EFE, explaining that he left Morocco where he lived with his family to build a better future in Spain. His mother had opposed this risky trip. "I can’t let you die like that, she told me. I told her that we were already dead, that I wanted to give a new life to my family, to help myself," details the Moroccan.

Haouri boarded this makeshift boat, with about thirty other migrants including a woman and her four-month-old baby. "She tells us that she wants to jump into the sea with her child, that she can’t take it anymore, that she prefers to die. We started saying no, no, the rescue will come! A recovery plane passed by. Then 30 or 40 minutes later, a boat. I don’t remember the name," he recounts.

It was the Guardamar Concepción Arenal ship, one of the four Salvamento patrol boats. Haouri remembers the sailors reaching out to them to climb aboard this orange boat. "When you see these men with their life jackets, you say to yourself: they are superheroes, people who do a very dangerous job in helping people they don’t even know," he declares, thanking the agents for their rescue. "I’m realistic, I’m still at point 1. Not at point 0, but at point 1 and I’ll keep going. Little by little I’ll realize my dreams."