Nearly 90 migrants died on Monday when their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania on the route to Europe, the official agency and a senior Mauritanian official said on Thursday.
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“ The Mauritanian coastguard has found the bodies of 89 people aboard a large traditional fishing boat that capsized on Monday, July 1, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. “4 km from the town of Ndiago (southwest of Mauritania), reported the Mauritanian News Agency. The coast guard rescued nine people, including a 5-year-old girl, it said.
The agency cites survivors’ accounts that the boat had left Niodior, on the border between Senegal and Gambia, with 170 passengers on board, bringing the number of missing to 72. The boat would therefore have been heading north along the Senegalese coast and had just passed through Mauritanian waters when it sank.
It is the latest tragedy on the Atlantic migratory route, with the Canaries, a Spanish archipelago and gateway to Europe, as its first destination. It takes days of sailing to cover several hundred kilometres to the Canaries in conditions described as terrible by survivors, at the mercy of hunger and thirst, the sun, the elements and damage.
Three Senegalese NGOs have signed a joint statement calling on the Dakar authorities to react following the shipwreck. In this text, they demand that the government take action to prevent the departure of young people, in particular by offering them better opportunities.
Adama Mbengue, president of Action for Human Rights and Friendship (ADHA), one of the signatory NGOs, and he criticizes the ineffectiveness so far of the policies implemented by Senegal and its European partners: “ There have been many mechanisms that have been put in place within the framework of the cooperation agreements between the European Union and Senegal: funding, numerous meetings, the creation of structures such as the National Youth Council, the National Council for the Integration and Employment of Youth and the numerous departments to actually counter so-called irregular migration. The expected results have never been forthcoming. We have an education system that is inadequate. We have endemic unemployment and we have a desert of opportunities for young people. I think that changing the paradigm means looking very quickly at solutions that can provide a glimmer of hope regarding their precarious situation and job search. So if they put this forward, frankly, young people will be there and young people will stay. »
These NGOs are also calling for increased surveillance and rescue at sea to help people who may already be sailing. The number of migrants who landed in the Canaries in 2023 has more than doubled in one year to reach a record figure of 39,910, according to the Spanish government. More than 5,000 migrants have died in the first five months of 2024 trying to reach the Spanish coast, most of them on the Canary Islands route, says the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras.
The Senegalese Navy is increasing the number of pirogues intercepted and the rescue of migrants in distress. This week, it reported intercepting a pirogue with 74 would-be migrants, including 20 children. In June, its patrol boats intercepted more than 470 people during four operations, according to information published on its social networks.