Eleven people drowned and five others were rescued after their boat capsized off the coast of Algeria as they attempted to reach Europe, according to a private television station and a Spanish aid organization on Monday.

According to the El-Hayet channel’s Facebook page, “11 clandestine migrants who set sail from Fouka (near Tipaza, west of Algiers) have died, and five young people, two of whom are children, have been rescued.”

Spanish NGO Cipimd, which specializes in identifying missing migrants, tweeted that “a boat carrying 16 people, including women and children, was shipwrecked on Sunday evening” off Tipaza.

“They were heading towards the Balearic archipelago,” it said.

Several Algerian social media users posted images of the victims, saying they were all from the town of Fouka, some 70 kilometers (42 miles) west of Algiers.

Those who survived spent 14 hours in the water before being rescued by an Egyptian vessel which handed them over to Algerian authorities, they said.

The Algerian coast guard has “thwarted several attempts at illegal emigration and rescued 172 people aboard makeshift boats”, between May 4 and 11, according to the defense ministry.

According to the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, 4,404 migrants died or went missing in desperate attempts to reach Spain in 2021, the highest toll since 2015.