More than 500 migrants rescued off Spain's Canary Islands

FILE PHOTO: A group of migrants in a wooden boat are towed by a Spanish coast guard vessel to the port of Arguineguin, in the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, October 21, 2023. REUTERS/Borja Suarez/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) - More than 500 migrants were rescued in the Atlantic Ocean off Spain's Canary Islands, the Spanish coastguard said on Saturday, as the number of people arriving on the archipelago so far this year neared an all-time record posted in 2006.

The coastguard said they had also found two dead bodies among those rescued from four boats in the waters off El Hierro, the smallest and most westerly of the Canary Islands.