Dozens of people missing after a fishing vessel sailed from the Senegal-Gambia border with 170 people reportedly on board.
At least 89 Europe-bound migrants and refugees died, with dozens still missing, when their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania, according to state media.
The fishing boat capsized on Monday about 4km off the coastal town of Ndiago in the southwest of the West African country. The Mauritanian coast guard recovered 89 bodies and rescued nine people, including a five-year-old girl, the state news agency reported on Thursday.
Survivors cited by state media said the boat left the border of Senegal and Gambia with 170 people on board, which would mean 72 are missing. A senior government official confirmed the information to the AFP news agency.
The boat capsized due to strong winds and high waves on the dangerous Atlantic route, known for its strong currents. Migrants travel in overloaded, often unseaworthy boats without sufficient drinking water.
Earlier this year, the European Union promised Mauritania, a former French colony, financial support worth 210 million euros ($229 million) to combat migration and provide humanitarian aid to migrants.
The agreement came amid a sharp increase in the number of migrants leaving the country for the Spanish Canary Islands, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the northwest coast of Africa.
More than 5,000 people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths a day, according to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity. The vast majority were on the Atlantic route.
Deadly land routes
Increasing numbers of people are choosing to travel by land, with deaths of people crossing dangerous routes in the Sahara expected to be twice those at sea, according to a new report from the United Nations migration and refugee agencies and from the research group at the Mixed Migration Center.
“Refugees and migrants increasingly cross into areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labor and sexual exploitation are rife,” states the report, released on Friday.
The report, researched over three years, states that conflict and instability in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan are causing an increase in the number of trips towards the Mediterranean.
In total, 1,180 people are known to have died while crossing the Sahara desert between January 2020 and May 2024, but the number is believed to be much higher, says the report, which included testimonies from more than 31,000 people. people.
This year alone, more than 72,000 people took land routes to the Mediterranean, with 785 dying or disappearing during that period, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Libya has emerged as a major transit point for people fleeing war and poverty. In March, authorities discovered a mass grave containing at least 65 bodies in the country’s western deserts.
Algeria, Libya and Ethiopia were considered by respondents to be the most dangerous transit countries.
The report recorded hundreds of cases of organ removals, with some migrants agreeing to them as a way of making money.
“But most of the time, people are drugged and the organ is removed without their consent: they wake up and a kidney is missing,” said UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
