Migrant children treated like adults as record influx overwhelms Canary Islands

Several volunteers give Spanish classes to migrants outside the Las Raices Camp in La Laguna, Spain, November 5, 2023. REUTERS/Borja Suarez

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain (Reuters) - Orphaned during a coup in his homeland Guinea, teenager Moussa Camara took to sea in a wooden boat with 240 other migrants, enduring an 11-day voyage, half of it without food and fresh water, before reaching the Canary Islands.

Twenty people died en route, their bodies dropped in the sea, the travellers said, more victims of one of the world's most perilous migrant routes.