• After an 11-day journey from Nigeria, three stowaways were discovered sitting on a ship’s rudder, according to Spanish officials.
• The coastguard posted a picture of the men sitting on the rudder at the helm of the oil tanker, their feet just above the surface of the water.
• They were transferred to a hospital in Gran Canaria, the tanker’s final destination, where they received treatment for mild dehydration.

The coastguard posted a picture of the men sitting on the rudder at the helm of the oil tanker, their feet just above the surface of the water.

They were transferred to a hospital in Gran Canaria, the tanker’s final destination, where they received treatment for mild dehydration.

It’s not clear if they sat on the rudder the whole way.

According to information gathered by marine tracking services, the Maltese-flagged Althini II travelled more than 2,700 nautical miles from Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

Medical personnel evaluated the men at the pier where they were discovered, and they were quickly brought to a hospital, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Stowaways had previously been discovered on rudders, which are substantial blade-like fins that are located beneath ships and are used for steering.

A 14-year-old boy who made the same trip from Lagos to Gran Canaria in 2020 claimed to have spent the entire 15-day voyage perched on a sizable fuel tanker in an interview with the newspaper El Pais. After surviving on salt water and sharing a hole above the rudder with the other men he was travelling with for sleep, he was hospitalised when they arrived.

“Weak as we were. I had no idea it would be this challenging “says he.

In another incident that year, the Norwegian oil tanker Champion Pula was travelling from Lagos to Las Palmas when four men were discovered on the rudder. According to reports from the period, the guys spent the ship’s ten days at sea hidden in a room under the rudder.

In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of migrants travelling by boat from west Africa to the Spanish-owned Canary Islands.

The journeys are protracted, dangerous, and fatal. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the UN reported 1,532 fatalities along the route in 2021.

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