Some 15 minors and a pregnant woman are among the 21 immigrants who died when their boat capsized just twenty metres from the coast, near the town of Teguise in Lanzarote.

The body of one victim is still to be found, so the search will renew again tomorrow morning.

The exact number of victims under the age of 18 will not be known until the autopsies have been carried out and bone tests confirm their ages, but it is believed that at least 15 were children and the youngest victim, a little girl, was just six years old.

The immigrants left Agadir in Morocco on Friday night and when they arrived in Lanzarote they were followed by Police for several hours, waiting to see where they would disembark. 

Their boat capsized at 6.30pm just of Los Cocteros beach and all six survivors owe their lives to a Uruguayan-born surfer, Cristhian Hunt, who was called to the scene by his wife and dived into the sea to go to their aid.

Hunt, who lives just metres away from where the tragedy happened, described the scene he found as 'pitiful' with 'immigrants floating in the surf and clinging onto the upturned boat'.

He has now become a local hero after braving the rough sea and using his surfboard to bring the causalties to the shore 'one by one'.  'They had all gone  blue and were suffering from hypothermia' he told reporters, 'They were at death's door'.

Canary Island government bodies and official institutions observed a minute's silence this morning for these latest victims of illegal immigration to the islands.  Afterwards, the head of the Canary Islands Government, Paulino Rivero, expressed his 'sadness and pain' at the incident and called for a ministerial meeting to work out ways to avoid tragedies of this kind happening again, saying that it was 'imperative' to improve methods of detection and control in the countries of origin.