DAKAR, Senegal — Greater than 60 migrants are feared {dead} after a Spanish fishing vessel off the Atlantic island of Cape Verde rescued a ship that began with greater than 100 aboard, authorities and migrant advocates stated Thursday.
Seven {dead} our bodies have been discovered on the boat, whereas an estimated 56 individuals are lacking at sea and presumed {dead}, stated Worldwide Group for Migration spokesperson Safa Msehli. In keeping with Senegal’s overseas affairs ministry, 38 survivors have been rescued earlier within the week close to Cape Verde, about 620 kilometers (385 miles) off the coast of West Africa.
The Spanish migration advocacy group Strolling Borders stated the vessel was a big fishing boat, known as a pirogue, which had left Senegal on July 10.
Households in Fass Boye, a seaside city 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital Dakar, had reached out to Strolling Borders on July 20 after 10 days with out listening to from family members on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzón stated.
Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the native fishermen’s affiliation, stated he has two nephews among the many lacking. “They wished to go to Spain,” Boye stated.
Cape Verde’s Nationwide Police stated a Spanish fishing vessel got here throughout the fishing boat on Monday morning about 150 miles north of the archipelago’s Sal island.
The Spanish vessel was unable to tow the fishing boat and took the survivors on board, in response to a Cape Verde police assertion on Fb.
The route from West Africa to Spain is without doubt one of the world’s most harmful, but the variety of migrants leaving from Senegal on rickety picket boats has surged over the previous yr. The boats attempt to attain Spain’s Canary Islands, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa that has been used as a stepping stone to continental Europe
Practically 1,000 migrants died whereas attempting to succeed in Spain by sea within the first six months of 2023, Strolling Borders says. Worsening youth unemployment, political unrest, violence by armed teams, and local weather change push migrants throughout West Africa to danger their lives on overcrowded boats.
Practically 10,000 individuals have reached Spain’s Canary Islands by sear from the Northwest coast of Africa to date this yr in response to Spain’s Inside Ministry figures.
On Aug. 7, the Moroccan navy recovered the our bodies of 5 Senegalese migrants and rescued 189 others after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara.
In 2021, an AP investigation discovered at the very least seven migrant boats from northwest Africa received misplaced within the Atlantic and have been discovered drifting throughout the Caribbean and even in Brazil, carrying solely lifeless our bodies.
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Related Press writers Babacar Dione and Barry Hatton contributed to this report.
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