Madrid, Spain

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Around 36 migrants are feared dead after a rubber dinghy carrying more than 60 people sank off the coast of Morocco on Wednesday. Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish NGO, said that only 24 people have been rescued by Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service while the remaining were still missing. An Associated Press report confirmed that the dead bodies of a man and a child were retrieved from the waters. 

Helena Maleno Garzon, the head of Spanish migration NGO Caminando Fronteras, said in a statement that the boat had been begging for help for 12 hours in Spanish waters. “Europe's border policy is what happened in Greece, Italy and Spain. It's torture and death," she wrote. 

Boat made distress call on Tuesday

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The Spanish Maritime Rescue received a distress call on Tuesday evening and promptly dispatched a plane from the Canary Islands to locate the boat. The vessel was found approximately 70 kilometres (44 miles) off the African coast and 160 kilometres south of the Canary Islands.

According to an unnamed spokesperson from the Spanish Maritime Rescue, the plane crew reported that the boat did not show any immediate signs of sinking, and there was no information available regarding the time or cause of the boat's sinking.

Watch: Greece boat disaster: Up to 500 people still missing says UN

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Morocco took charge of the rescue operation, and a merchant ship in the vicinity responded to the alert, eventually assisting in rescuing the 24 survivors. The bodies of the child and the man were discovered separately on Wednesday, with the Spanish helicopter finding the child's body and the merchant ship locating the man's body.

NGO raises concerns over rescue efforts

Helena Maleno raised concerns about the delay in assisting the migrants. In a tweet, she stated that the migrants were left without help for 12 hours and claimed that a total of 39 people, including four women and a baby, had died. However, these figures have yet to be officially verified.

Also read: Greece boat tragedy: Pakistanis were singled out to go below deck, says report

This incident marked the second tragedy involving migrant boats attempting to reach Spain within two days. The previous day, a pregnant woman's body was found on a migrant boat carrying over 40 individuals near the Canary Island of Lanzarote.

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