Fourteen people have appeared in court in Morocco, charged with organising illegal immigration to Spain, after more than twenty people drowned last week trying to reach Spain by boat.

Two passengers survived after their vessel capsized when its hull split open.

The official Moroccan news agency MAP said passengers had paid up to two-thousand dollars to the boat owner.

Spanish officials estimate that around two hundred people, mainly Moroccans, die every year trying to reach Spain across the Strait of Gibralter that seperates Spain from Africa