More that 60 migrants headed for Spain are missing and feared dead after coast guards off the Atlantic island of Cape Verde rescued 38 people whose boat was found drifting.
The migrants had left Senegal, in West Africa, over one month ago. More than 100 aboard were on board, according to authorities and migrant rights groups.
Senegal’s foreign affairs ministry said the boat was rescued on Tuesday by the coast guard in Cape Verde, about 620 kilometres off the coast.
Authorities reported 38 survivors and several dead but did not confirm how many migrants died, or what caused the trip to fail.
The survivors include four children aged between 12 and 16, a spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.
#UPDATE More than 60 people are believed to have died after a migrant boat from Senegal was found off West Africa's Cape Verde islands, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.https://t.co/zDvSkktaVs
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 16, 2023
The vessel was first spotted on Monday, police told the AFP news agency. Initial reports suggested the boat had sunk but it was later clarified that it had been found drifting.
Cape Verde officials are calling for global action on migration to help prevent further loss of life.
Desperate to 'go to Spain'
While the migrants ended up in Cape Verde, their intended destination appears to be Spain. The archipelago sits around 600km off the coast of West Africa and on the migration route to the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory seen by many as a route to the EU.
The Spanish migration advocacy group Walking Borders said the vessel was a pirogue, a large fishing boat, which had left Senegal on 10 July.
Families in Fass Boye, a seaside town 145 kilometres north of the capital Dakar, had reached out to Walking Borders 10 days without hearing from loved ones on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzón told the Associated Press.
Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the local fishermen’s association, said he has two nephews among the missing.
“They wanted to go to Spain,” Boye added.
According to the IOM, it is one of the most dangerous journeys any migrant can make.
Yet the number of migrants leaving from Senegal on unsafe wooden boats has surged over the past year.
Nearly 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, Walking Borders says.
Factors such as youth unemployment, political unrest and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats.
On 7 August, the Moroccan navy recovered the bodies of five Senegalese migrants and rescued 189 others after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara.
Senegal's government said it was liaising with authorities in Cape Verde to arrange the repatriation of Senegalese nationals.
The passengers' other countries of origin reportedly include Sierra Leone and, in one case, Guinea-Bissau.
(with newswires)
