The state news agency and a local official said on Thursday that over ninety migrants headed for Europe died when their boat capsized earlier this week off the coast of Mauritania, with scores more going missing.
Four kilometers from Ndiago, the capital in the southwest of the country, the state news agency said that “the Mauritanian coast guard recovered the bodies of 89 people aboard a large traditional fishing boat that capsized on Monday, July 1 on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.”
It stated that nine individuals, including a five-year-old girl, were saved by the coastguard.
According to survivors cited by the agency, the boat had sailed with 170 people on board from the Senegalese and Gambian borders, raising the total number of those missing to 72.
Similar details were provided to AFP by a senior local government official, who requested anonymity.
Strong currents make the Atlantic trip especially hazardous for migrants, who frequently travel in overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels lacking basic drinking water.
However, because of the growing awareness in the Mediterranean, its popularity has soared.
The Spanish government reports that in 2023, the number of migrants arriving at Spain’s Canary Islands more than doubled in a single year, reaching a record 39,910.
At their closest point, the Canary Islands of Spain are about 100 kilometers off the coast of North Africa.
However, a lot of boats—often lengthy wooden ships called pirogues—leave from much farther away, sailing out of Western Sahara, Morocco, Mauritania, Gambia, and Senegal.
According to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish organization, almost 5,000 migrants perished in the first five months of this year while attempting to reach Spain by sea, or the equivalent of 33 deaths every day.
With the great majority occurring on the Atlantic route, that is the highest daily death toll since statistics were first compiled in 2007.
