MADRID— Spanish police said Monday they had fished the bodies of seven suspected migrants from the country’s southeastern Mediterranean coast since Sunday night.

“The guardia civil pulled out seven lifeless bodies off Alicante and Murcia” after spotting them “floating in the sea on Sunday afternoon August 28 and the morning of Monday 29th,” a police statement read.

The corpses were taken for autopsies to determine their age, sex and nationality, as well as cause of death, the police said, adding it appeared they were all north Africans who had tried to reach Spanish soil in an unseaworthy boat.

Saturday saw one man rescued slightly further up the coast after he tried to reach Spain on a boat six metres long and without a motor.

Police are investigating if his case is linked to those of the dead seven migrants.

From Jan 1 to Aug 15 Spain registered a total of 16,378 migrants arriving by sea.

At its shortest, the route to Spain from the Moroccan coast is around 100 kilometres, but migrants often come from much further afield, with the distance from Mauritania more than 1,000 kilometres as the crow flies.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK