At least 15 people have died and more than 150 are missing after a boat full of people hoping to make it to Europe capsized off the coast of Mauritania, citing International Organization for Migration (IOM), The Guardian reported on Wednesday (24 July).
About 300 people had boarded the long, wooden, fishing vessel in The Gambia, roughly 850 miles (1,350km) to the south, spending seven days at sea before the boat overturned on Monday, the agency said in a statement.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of 15 migrants and the estimated disappearance at sea of 195+ people after a boat capsized in Nouakchott,” the IOM posted on social media.
It is the latest in a series of accidents off the coast of west Africa as people increasingly resort to a deadly route rippling with strong currents and limited in coastguard resources.
After two days of strong winds, the UN migration agency said 120 people had been rescued by the Mauritanian coastguard, while efforts to locate the missing individuals were continuing. It said 15 people were confirmed dead on arrival.
“Among the survivors 10 people were urgently referred to hospitals for medical care, and four unaccompanied and separated children were identified,” it said.
As vigilance in the Mediterranean increases, record numbers of people turning to the Atlantic are being seen. They are setting off on the treacherous route to Spain’s Canary Islands in overloaded, often unseaworthy, vessels.
Last year the IOM linked the rise of the risky route to the lack of other options. “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,” it said in August.
News of the latest tragedy came 25 years to the day of the first known shipwreck carrying migrants to the Canary Islands. On 24 July 1999 nine Moroccans were found drowned just metres off the shore of the island of Fuerteventura after their vessel ended up stranded on rocks.
On Wednesday a source in Mauritania told the AFP news agency that most of those onboard the vessel were from The Gambia and Senegal, where political unrest, rising food prices and depleting fish populations hade led to a surge in people attempting the Atlantic routes.
So far this year more than 19,700 migrants reached the Canary Islands by the Atlantic route – a 160% increase over last year, the IOM said.
As arrivals increase so do deaths along the route. More than 5,000 people, the majority of them on the Atlantic route, died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, the Spanish NGO Ca-Minando Fronteras said in June.
That is an equivalent of 33 deaths each day, which the NGO described as the highest daily number of deaths since it began keeping track in 2007.
Speaking to Reuters from the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, Ibba Sarr, a fishmonger, said the migrant vessel had been found just north of a waterside fish market in the city. “Surely other lifeless bodies will be discovered in the next two days,” he added.
