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Three migrants who survived an 11-day journey from Nigeria to the Canary Islands on the rudder of a fuel tanker have asked for asylum in Spain, officials have said.
AFP reports that the three Nigerian men were found when the Alithini II fuel ship docked in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria on Monday evening.
The three stowaways had symptoms of hypothermia and received medical attention before being returned to the ship.
Spanish authorities initially said the operator of the ship had the legal responsibility to transport them back to Nigeria since they were stowaways.
But a spokesperson for the central government's representative in the Canary Islands said the three migrants have requested asylum in Spain and the Maltese-flagged ship was allowed to leave Gran Canaria without them.
The Alithini II left Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, for a journey of 2,700 nautical miles to Las Palmas on November 17th, according to maritime tracking websites.
Spain's Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic off the northwest coast of Africa, are a popular gateway for African migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
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With all that oil Nigeria should be developed like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and other oil rich countries. They are competing who will undo Sani Abacha in looting.
@ Kenya, I agree with you. When you see Qatar hosting the world cup,and Saudi Arabia hosting sporting events that including women's boxing,and also allowing them to drive now, it's all for making sure that in the eventuality that some country discovers cheap energy,and renders petrodollar "useless" they would have something to fall back on to.And that spell trouble for countries like Nigeria that are not investing wisely from this"natural lottery".
A super rich country with poverty and scammers all over the world. Lots of oil mineral gas rich nations in Africa: Gabon Mozambique Chad Angola DRC Libya equitorial guinea Ghana Tunisia Egypt South Sudan Algeria Uganda. But akili hekima kukosa
According to a simple Google search, "Nigeria holds 37,070,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves as of 2016, ranking 10th in the world and accounting for about 2.2% of the world's total oil reserves of 1,650,585,140,000 barrels". This should not be happening to Nigerians.