MADRID - Two migrants were rescued on Tuesday after spending two weeks adrift in the Mediterranean trying to reach Spain’s Balearic Islands, authorities said, adding they were searching for 17 others who survivors said had accompanied them. Another two migrants were found dead off the archipelago on Tuesday as last week’s mass influx of migrants to the north African territory of Ceuta puts Spain’s handling of irregular immigration under the spotlight. Two north African men were rescued at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) about 13 nautical miles southwest of Mallorca, the Spanish government’s representative in the Balearic Islands said in a statement. Both were taken to hospital suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, the statement said. It said the survivors told rescuers that the boat had been drifting for 15 days and that the 17 other people who were travelling on their boat had died. “There is no other record of these other people, other than the testimony of the occupants,” a spokeswoman for the government representative told AFP. Spain’s maritime rescue service deployed a helicopter to search the area where the two migrants were found and issued a navigational warning to vessels nearby as the operation continued. The Civil Guard later said two bodies were recovered eight nautical miles southwest of the uninhabited island of Cabrera on Tuesday afternoon. It was unclear if the two bodies found dead belonged to the first boat. “Without a doubt, it is one of the toughest days in the humanitarian tragedy that the Balearic Islands are experiencing,” regional leader Marga Prohens wrote on X. Most irregular immigration to Spain by sea takes place via the Atlantic route from west Africa to the Canary Islands, one of the main paths to Europe for people fleeing war, persecution and poverty. While arrivals to the Canaries have fallen recently, migrants are increasingly using the Balearic route from north Africa, particularly Algeria. The interior ministry has recorded 3,864 migrants irregularly reaching the Balearic Islands from Jan. 1 to July 31 -- a 10-per cent increase from the same period in 2025. “The images and the numbers leave no one unmoved and confirm that the islands cannot go on facing this emergency alone,” Prohens said on X. She called on the central government to draw up a “specific plan to address the migration emergency facing the Balearic Islands.”
