MADRID, Spain (CNN) - Fifteen Africans died while trying to reach Spain’s southern coast in a small, overcrowded boat, Spanish officials told CNN on Thursday.

Rescue teams located the craft late Wednesday off the coast of Almeria province and helped it ashore. Aboard were 33 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and a dead woman.

They told authorities that 14 others, including nine young children, had died en route and were dropped overboard, officials told CNN.