More than twenty bodies were recovered on Wednesday February 28 at sea in northern Senegal after the sinking of a boat of migrants seeking to reach Europe according to testimonies, the governor of the Saint region told AFP -Louis. “A little more than twenty bodies” were found, said Alioune Badara Samb, contacted by telephone. Around twenty people were rescued, he added.
He did not comment on the number of passengers who were initially on board the boat. But testimonies from survivors collected by an AFP correspondent suggest that a considerable number of people were on board and were therefore missing.
Mamady Dianfo, from Casamance (in the south of the country), spoke of more than 300 occupants when the boat left the Senegalese coast a week ago. Another survivor, Alpha Baldé, spoke of more than 200 occupants. Mamady Dianfo said that the boat had arrived in Morocco. There, “the captain told us that he was lost and could no longer continue the journey. We asked him to take us back to Senegal,” he said.
The tragedy occurred at the mouth of Saint-Louis, notoriously dangerous, he said. “Since the afternoon, we have been witnessing the stranding of lifeless bodies,” said the governor. The search for survivors continued after nightfall with resources from the local national navy base, he stressed. According to the governor, the boat could have left from Joal-Fadiouth, a few hundred kilometers further south.
Not a day without an arrival in the Canaries
For years, Senegal has been facing a flood of departures heading to the Canaries, a Spanish archipelago and gateway to Europe, via the particularly deadly Atlantic sea route off the West African coast.
Thousands of Senegalese fleeing poverty, unemployment or what they believe to be a lack of future prospects have embarked clandestinely on wooden canoes which can reach around twenty meters and carry dozens of passengers. They pay a few hundred thousand CFA francs (1,000 CFA francs = 1.5 euros) to a smuggler and defy the dangers of a crossing of around 1,500 kilometers to reach the Canaries after seven to ten days of navigation .
At the end of 2023, hardly a day went by without reports in Senegal of an arrival in the Canaries, an interception or a shipwreck. According to Frontex, the agency controlling European borders, migrants from Senegal are, along with those from Morocco, the most numerous to arrive in the Canaries.
The number of migrants who landed in 2023 in the Canaries tripled in one year to reach a record 39,910 people, according to the Spanish government. Of the more than 6,600 migrants who died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain in 2023, the vast majority perished on the Atlantic Ocean route, highlights a recent report from the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras. President Macky Sall ordered emergency measures in November to stem this growing flow.
