More than 60 migrants are believed to have lost their lives aboard a canoe that left the Senegalese coast in early July and was found off the coast of Cape Verde on Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.
The number of dead is estimated at 63, with 38 survivors, including four children aged 12 to 16, IOM spokeswoman Safa Msehli told AFP.
The boat was spotted Monday in the Atlantic about 150 nautical miles (277 km) from the Cape Verdean island of Sal by a Spanish fishing vessel which alerted Cape Verdean authorities, police said. archipelago, about six hundred kilometers from the Senegalese coast.
Apart from the 38 survivors, the rescuers found the remains of seven people, reported the spokesperson.
According to the testimonies of the survivors quoted by the Senegalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other sources, the boat had left the locality of Fass Boye (west), on the Senegalese coast, on July 10 with 101 passengers on board, all Senegalese. with the exception of a Bissau-Guinean.
Thus, 56 people are missing. “Generally, when people are reported missing as a result of a shipwreck, they are presumed dead,” the spokeswoman said. The authorities have so far refrained from commenting on what happened after the departure of the canoe on July 10. The information was confirmed by Abdou Karim Sarr, an official of the Local Artisanal Fisheries Councils (CLPA), a professional organization: “The missing are all dead”.
It’s “sadness, dismay, despair and total calm,” said Fass Boye local elected official Moda Samb. According to him, 98% of the occupants of the canoe are from Fass Boye: “They were born and raised” in this fishing town. “One of the survivors, who had his father on the phone, told him that the others [missing] are dead,” he said. “Other [families] are waiting to find out if their children are among the survivors,” he said.
Cape Verdean authorities said they had mobilized all necessary means to assist the passengers, seven of whom were hospitalized after disembarking on the island of Sal on Tuesday.
The Senegalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured, for its part, to work for the repatriation of its nationals “as soon as possible”.
Senegal has been bereaved by several migration dramas in recent years. Sixteen migrants perished on the night of July 23 to 24 in the sinking of their boat near Dakar. At least thirteen Senegalese lost their lives a few days earlier off the coast of Morocco. The Senegalese government presented, at the end of July, a National Strategy to fight against irregular migration, along different axes: prevention, border control, repression, return and reintegration of migrants.
Cape Verde is on the maritime migratory route taken each year by thousands of Africans fleeing poverty or war for Europe, or hoping for a better life, despite the dangerousness of the journey which costs the lives of hundreds of ‘between them. They travel aboard modest boats or motorized canoes provided by smugglers who pay for the trip. Many land in the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago and gateway to Europe.
Many testimonies report the perils of the trip, subject to weather hazards, engine damage, thirst and hunger. About 90 migrants from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone had already been rescued in Cape Verdean waters in mid-January.
