At least 60 lives are believed to have been misplaced in a migrant boat accident off West Africa’s Cape Verde islands within the Atlantic Ocean, the United Nations migration physique confirmed late Wednesday.
Sixty-three individuals are thought to have perished, whereas the 38 survivors included 4 kids aged 12 to 16, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman Safa Msehli informed the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The lengthy wood fishing vessel of Senegalese origin, also called a pirogue, was noticed Monday within the Atlantic Ocean about 277 kilometers (150 nautical miles) from the Cape Verdean island of Sal, police mentioned.
The Spanish fishing vessel that noticed it alerted Cape Verdean authorities.
The Cape Verde archipelago lies about 600 kilometers off the coast on the maritime migration path to the Spanish Canary Islands – a gateway to the European Union.
Emergency companies recovered the stays of seven folks, Msehli informed AFP, whereas one other 56 individuals are believed to be lacking.
“Generally, when people are reported missing following a shipwreck, they are presumed dead,” she mentioned.
The boat left the Senegalese fishing village of Fasse Boye on July 10 with 101 folks on board, Senegal’s Foreign Ministry mentioned Tuesday, citing survivors.
Apart from one particular person from Guinea-Bissau, they had been all Senegalese.
The authorities haven’t, for the second, mentioned what occurred to the boat as soon as it set off.
But Abdou Karim Sarr, an officer with the native fisherman’s affiliation the CLPA, informed AFP: “Those missing are all dead.”
Dangerous route
Moda Samb, a neighborhood elected official from Fasse Boye, mentioned almost all these on the boat had grown up on this fishing group.
“One of the survivors who had his father on the telephone told him that the others were dead,” he mentioned. Other households had been nonetheless ready to listen to if their kids had been among the many survivors, he added.
The authorities in Cape Verde mentioned that they had mobilized the required sources to look after the survivors, seven of whom needed to be hospitalized after reaching Sal on Tuesday.
Senegal’s Foreign Ministry mentioned it might be working to repatriate its residents as quickly as doable.
Senegal has already handled a number of related tragedies lately.
Cape Verde lies on one of many maritime migration routes utilized by hundreds of Africans fleeing poverty and struggle towards Europe.
Many of them purpose to achieve the Spanish Canary Islands, one of the harmful routes, typically touring within the pirogue boats, that are susceptible to the vagaries of the climate.
Around 90 migrants from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone needed to be rescued within the seas off Cape Verde in January this yr.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
