The Mauritanian coastguard pulled 89 bodies from the sea and rescued nine people, among them a five-year-old girl, according to the state news agency.
The boat, a fishing vessel carrying migrants and refugees bound for Europe, capsized on Monday about 4km (2.4 miles) off Ndiago, a city in the southwest of the country. Strong winds and high waves brought it down on an Atlantic route known for powerful currents.
Survivors quoted by state media said it had left the border area between Senegal and Gambia with 170 people on board. That would leave 72 missing. A senior government official confirmed the numbers to AFP.
A route with a rising toll
Boats on this route are often overloaded and unseaworthy, and carry too little drinking water. The Canary Islands, Spain’s territory, lie about 100km (62 miles) off the northwest coast of Africa, and more migrants have been setting off from Mauritania towards them. Earlier this year the European Union promised Mauritania, a former French colony, 210m euros ($229m) in support to tackle migration and provide humanitarian aid.
The Spanish charity Caminando Fronteras counted more than 5,000 deaths at sea among people trying to reach Spain in the first five months of the year, about 33 a day. Most were on the Atlantic route.
The land routes
A report released on Friday by United Nations refugee and migration agencies and the Mixed Migration Centre said more people are choosing to travel by land. Deaths in the Sahara are presumed to be double those at sea. The report, researched over three years and drawing on testimony from more than 31,000 people, recorded 1,180 known deaths crossing the desert between January 2020 and May 2024, and said the true number is believed to be much higher.
Conflict and instability in Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan are driving more journeys towards the Mediterranean. According to UNHCR figures, more than 72,000 people took land routes to the Mediterranean this year, and 785 died or went missing. Respondents named Algeria, Libya and Ethiopia as the most dangerous transit countries.
“Refugees and migrants are increasingly traversing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labour and sexual exploitation are rife,” the report said. It tallied hundreds of cases of organ removal, some of which migrants had agreed to as a way to earn money.
In March, authorities in Libya found a mass grave in the country’s western desert holding at least 65 bodies.
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- At least 89 people dead as boat capsizes off Mauritania | Migration…
- At least 89 migrants dead after boat capsizes off Mauritania, state…
