Over 60 migrants are believed to have died after a Spanish fishing vessel rescued a boat with over 100 people on board near Cape Verde, according to authorities and migrant advocates. The International Organization for Migration reported that seven bodies were discovered on the boat, with an estimated 56 individuals presumed dead and missing at sea. Earlier in the week, 38 survivors were rescued near Cape Verde, approximately 620 kilometers off the coast of West Africa. The vessel, known as a pirogue, had departed from Senegal on July 10.
Concerned families in Fass Boye, a coastal town north of Dakar, reached out to the migration advocacy group Walking Borders after 10 days passed without hearing from their loved ones on the boat. A local fishing association president, Cheikh Awa Boye, revealed that survivors had contacted their families from Cape Verde after the rescue, but many are still missing, including two of Boye’s nephews.
The Spanish Maritime Rescue Service confirmed the rescue of 38 individuals and recovery of seven bodies on August 14th. The survivors, who were in a “bad state,” were aboard a Senegalese pirogue that was found adrift northeast of Cape Verde. The route from West Africa to Spain is known as one of the most perilous, yet the number of migrants departing from Senegal on fragile wooden boats has significantly increased in the past year. These boats attempt to reach Spain’s Canary Islands, serving as a gateway to continental Europe.
According to Walking Borders, nearly 1,000 migrants have lost their lives while attempting to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023. Factors such as worsening youth unemployment, political unrest, violence by armed groups, and climate change have compelled migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats. Spain’s Interior Ministry has reported that nearly 10,000 individuals have reached the Canary Islands from Africa’s Northwest coast so far this year.
An AP investigation in 2021 revealed that at least seven migrant boats from Northwest Africa had gone astray in the Atlantic Ocean and were discovered drifting across the Caribbean and even in Brazil, carrying only lifeless bodies.
Associated Press writers Babacar Dione and Barry Hatton contributed to this report.
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