The migrants saw the lights of a coastal town late on Tuesday night, a senior coastguard official told AFP, and crowded to one side of the boat. It rolled over. At least 69 people died, Mauritanian coastguards said, and the Gambian foreign affairs ministry later put the toll at 70.
The vessel was a dugout canoe bound for Spain’s Canary Islands. Survivors said it left The Gambia six days before the accident with around 160 people aboard, mostly Gambian and Senegalese. The Gambian ministry used a lower estimate of 150 passengers. BBC reported that 17 were pulled from the water; the ministry counted 16.
Search off Nouakchott
Coastguard sources told the Spanish agency EFE that the search was concentrated about 60km (37 miles) north of the capital, Nouakchott. Rescue teams were getting ready to dive and inspect the sunken boat.
The ministry said Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday. Another 30 people were feared dead, and witness accounts suggested more than 100 may have been killed in all.
Helen Maleno, a spokesperson for the rights group Caminando Fronteras, urged the coastguard to keep searching. She told Spanish media it was one of the most significant “tragedies of this summer.”
A route with a record behind it
The Atlantic crossing from West Africa to the Canaries is among the deadliest in the world. The European Union says more than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the islands last year, a record. BBC put the figure at nearly 47,000. Caminando Fronteras counts more than 10,000 deaths on the route, a 58% increase over 2023. BBC cited the same group’s estimate as more than 9,000.
The Gambian ministry called this one of the deadliest accidents in recent years on the route. It asked its citizens to “refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys, which continue to claim the lives of many.”
BBC also noted a Human Rights Watch report alleging that rights violations had worsened under a deal between the European Union and Spain meant to curb the dangerous sea crossings to the Canary Islands.
Sources
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Sources
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