Dozens of people are missing after a fishing boat left the Senegal-Gambia border with 170 people on board.
At least 89 migrants and refugees bound for Europe died, and dozens are still missing, when their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania, according to state media.
The Mauritanian fishing boat capsized on Monday about 4 km (2.5 miles) off the coastal town of Ndiago in the southwest of the country. The Mauritanian coastguard recovered 89 bodies and rescued nine people, including a five-year-old girl, the official news agency said on Thursday.
Survivors quoted by state media said the boat had left the Senegal-Gambia border with 170 people on board, meaning 72 people are now missing. A senior government official confirmed the information to AFP news agency.
The boat capsized due to strong winds and high waves on the dangerous Atlantic Roadknown for its strong currents. Migrants travel in overloaded, often impassable boats without enough drinking water.
Earlier this year, the European Union promised Mauritania, a former French colony, financial aid worth 210 million euros ($229 million) to combat migration and provide humanitarian aid to migrants.
The deal comes amid a sharp increase in the number of migrants leaving the country for the Canary Islands, located about 100km off the northwest coast of Africa.
According to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity, more than 5,000 people have died trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, the equivalent of 33 deaths a day. The vast majority of them took the Atlantic route.
Deadly land routes
More and more people are choosing to travel by land, leading to deaths of people crossing dangerous roads. Sahara The number of cases is twice as high as that seen at sea, according to a new report from the UN refugee and migration agency and the Centre on Mixed Migration research group.
“Refugees and migrants are increasingly crossing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labour and sexual exploitation are commonplace,” the report, released Friday, said.
The report, which was carried out over three years, says conflict and instability in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan are driving an increase in travel to the Mediterranean.
In total, 1,180 people are estimated to have died crossing the Sahara Desert between January 2020 and May 2024, but the toll is believed to be much higher, according to the report, which is based on the testimonies of more than 31,000 people.
This year alone, more than 72,000 people have taken the land route to reach the Mediterranean, and 785 of them have died or gone missing during this period, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Libya has become a popular transit point for people fleeing war and poverty. In March, authorities discovered a pauper’s 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 documents hundreds of cases of organ harvesting, with some migrants agreeing to do so to earn money.
“But most of the time, people are drugged and the organ is removed without their consent: they wake up and they are missing a kidney,” explains UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel.
