Mobile phone call saves immigrants adrift for three days

Rescue crews found a boat crammed with 41 would-be immigrants, including four babies, off the Canary Islands, after they made a mobile phone call to say they had been adrift for three days.

A helicopter spotted the vessel off the island of Fuerteventura last night after a 10-hour search prompted by the phone call, said Anibal Carrillo, head of the maritime rescue service in the archipelago’s capital, Las Palmas.