24 bodies recovered from wooden migrant boat off Canary Islands

A wooden boat is towed by a Spanish Maritime Rescue Service ship (Andres Gutierrez/AP)

The bodies of 24 sub-Saharan migrants, who are believed to have died of thirst and hunger as they tried to cross from the west coast of Africa to the Canary Islands, have been brought to land by Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service.

Their wooden boat was first spotted by a Spanish Air Force plane drifting in the Atlantic Ocean some 304 miles from the island of El Hierro on Monday.