A Spanish fishing boat spotted a long wooden vessel adrift in the Atlantic on Monday, about 150 nautical miles (277 kilometres) from the Cape Verdean island of Sal. It alerted Cape Verdean authorities. By Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was saying at least 63 of the people aboard were thought to be dead.
Early reports said the boat had sunk. Police later clarified that it was found drifting.
What the IOM says
The vessel had left Senegal on 10 July with about 100 passengers, according to survivors. It is not clear when the incident itself happened. Thirty-eight people survived, among them four children aged between 12 and 16.
Emergency services have recovered the remains of seven people. Another 56 are missing. An IOM spokesperson, Safa Msehli, told ABC News that people missing at sea are presumed dead, and the spokesperson told AFP the same: “Generally, when people are reported missing following a shipwreck, they are presumed dead.”
Cape Verde sits about 350 miles (600km) off the coast, on the sea route to Spain’s Canary Islands. That Atlantic route from west Africa, typically used to reach mainland Spain, is among the world’s deadliest. The IOM said the lack of legal options feeds the trade in people: “Safe and regular pathways to migration are sorely lacking, which is what gives room to smugglers and traffickers to put people on these deadly journeys.”
A deadly year on several routes
At least 559 people died trying to reach the Canary Islands in 2022. In the first six months of this year, 126 died or went missing on the same route, with 15 shipwrecks recorded, the IOM said. In July, another 15 people drowned when a boat capsized off Dakar, Senegal’s capital.
The wider picture is no better. IOM regional director Othman Belbeisi said at least 1,449 people had died or disappeared on migration routes in the Middle East and North Africa region between January and July, a 7% increase on the same period last year. Tunisia accounted for 619 of those dead or missing and Libya for 508, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.
“One death is one too many,” Belbeisi said. “This alarming death toll demands concerted efforts to ensure the safety and protection of migrants. We are all responsible.”
In the Mediterranean, at least 11 migrants died on Monday and seven more were missing after their boat capsized off Tunisia, Tunisian authorities said. A week earlier, 41 people were feared dead after a boat sank in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Frontex, Europe’s border and coastguard agency, reported last week that irregular arrivals rose by 13% between January and July to 176,100, the highest for that period since 2016. A 115% rise in use of the central Mediterranean route drove the entire increase.
Sources
- At least 63 people feared dead after boat found off Cape Verde
- 63 presumed dead after boat carrying migrants sinks near Cabo Verde off the coast of Senegal
Sources
- At least 63 people feared dead after boat found off… | The Guardian
- 63 presumed dead after migrant boat sinks near Senegal – ABC News
