Two migrants were rescued yesterday after spending two weeks adrift in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Spain’s Balearic Islands, authorities said, adding they were searching for 17 others who survivors said had been aboard the boat.

The two north African men were rescued at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) about 13 nautical miles southwest of Mallorca, the Spanish government’s representative in the Balearic Islands said in a statement.

Both were taken to hospital suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, the statement said.

It said the survivors told rescuers that the boat had been drifting for 15 days and that the 17 other people who were travelling with them had died.

“There is no other record of these other people, other than the testimony of the occupants,” a spokeswoman for the government representative told AFP.

Spain’s maritime rescue service deployed a helicopter to search the area where the two migrants were found and issued a navigational warning to vessels nearby as the operation continued.

“The most heartless face of the migration crisis strikes the Balearic Islands again,” regional president Marga Prohens wrote on X.

She called on the central government to draw up a “specific plan to address the migration emergency facing the Balearic Islands”.

The Mediterranean archipelago is a popular tourist destination that includes the islands of Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza.

It has become an increasingly used route for migrants departing from north Africa, particularly Algeria, in attempts to reach Europe.

The announcement came after a crisis last week struck Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta, where the central government said 50,000 migrants entered, mostly by swimming in the sea around the border barrier.