ARGUINEGUIN, Spain - Two people died and five are feared dead after they attempted to reach Spain's Canary Islands on a boat with migrants on board, authorities said on Tuesday.

The pirogue - a type of dugout canoe - was sighted on Monday evening at around 8 p.m. (2000 GMT) by a merchant vessel which alerted authorities on the island of Gran Canaria.

Rescue services deployed helicopters to evacuate the injured and a ship to tow the pirogue to the Gran Canaria port of Arguineguin, 76 nautical miles (140 km) to the north, where they were met by Red Cross staff and police.

Spanish maritime rescue service said earlier the bodies of two deceased people were found on the boat during the rescue operations. Later on Tuesday, the Red Cross in the Canary Islands said some survivors reported that five others died en route but their bodies were thrown from the pirogue.

The maritime rescue service has been unable to confirm the additional deaths.

The five bodies have not been found yet so they are being treated as missing people, the Red Cross said, adding that 40 people were rescued from the boat, including the two dead.

Those on board the boat were African men and women, a spokesperson for the rescue service told Reuters, without giving details of where the boat had started its voyage.

The EU border agency Frontex says the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands is the busiest route for irregular migration from West Africa into the European Union.

The number of migrants boarding boats to attempt the crossing to the Canary Islands has risen more than six-fold so far this year from the same period of 2023, Spanish Interior Ministry data showed.

A total of 11,932 irregular migrants reached the Atlantic Ocean archipelago between Jan. 1 and Feb. 29, compared with the 1,865 who arrived in the same period in 2023, the ministry said.

Sea conditions around the Canary Islands have been challenging for navigation in the past week, with state weather agency AEMET issuing several alerts over ocean swells. REUTERS