Toddlers among the dead as 15 African migrants perish on tiny boat drifting toward Spain

Their distraught parents threw their bodies overboard after they began to decompose.

The deaths were the second tragedy this week in the saga of destitute Africans risking their lives to reach Europe's southern gateway in search of work.

Rescued: An infant migrant is carried by a Red Cross worker in Almeria on Wednesday

Safe ashore: A rescue worker helps two of 23 migrants ashore in Motril, Spain, early on Wednesday

A Spanish patrol boat rescued 33 people and recovered one body from the boat on Wednesday night in the Mediterranean off the coast of Almeria province.

Survivors told police they had been adrift for four or five days after the boat's motor broke down.

As people died - including nine children aged one to four - their bodies were thrown overboard.

Red Cross spokesman Antonio Hermosa said conditions aboard the 20ft vessel, with nearly 50 people aboard, must have been awful. 'We are talking absolute horror,' he added.

Three other migrant boats carrying 139 people were also intercepted Wednesday night in Almeria waters, a maritime rescue official said.

On Monday, Spanish officials said 14 Africans were missing and presumed dead off the city of Motril after their boat capsized in rough seas. Crews pulled 23 people out of the water, including a pregnant woman.

Intercepted: A baby migrant cries as she is held by a Civil Guard following her arrival in Melilla, the Spanish enclave in northern Africa

The government has decided to let that woman and a man who lost his wife, child and brother in the ordeal remain in Spain as a humanitarian gesture, Hermosa said.

Every year, thousands of poor Africans seeking a better life attempt treacherous journeys in overcrowded boats, hoping to reach the Spanish mainland or Spain's Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa.

Most are caught and hundreds more die along the way, either from exposure or by drowning.

Traditionally, migrants went through Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar or crossed the Mediterranean further east to get to the Spanish mainland.

But a crackdown in recent years has prompted traffickers to move operations west to countries such as Mauritania, now the launching point for much-longer voyages to the Canary Islands.

The number of those who actually make it to the islands is down drastically because of better surveillance of African coastal waters, Spanish officials say.

A boat too far: Red Cross workers assist one of a group of 74 migrants that arrived in Motril, southern Spain