Death toll from boat that capsized off Senegal rises to 26

Navy says search continues as many passengers from the vessel, which sank off the town of Mbour, remain missing.

Senegal’s navy says it has found 17 more bodies from a boat carrying refugees and migrants that sank off the West African country, raising the death toll to 26.

In a post on X, the navy said on Tuesday that it had recovered “17 lifeless bodies” after nine people were initially announced dead following Sunday’s shipwreck off the western town of Mbour.

The search is ongoing, the navy said. Many of the vessel’s passengers remain missing.

The boat – a narrow, wooden fishing vessel known as a pirogue – was carrying more than 100 people from the town, and it capsized after sailing only 4km (2.5 miles), state broadcaster Radio Television Senegalaise said late on Sunday.

Witnesses in Mbour were quoted as saying that dozens of people had boarded the boat, the AFP news agency reported.

A spokesperson for the armed forces told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the navy had sent a plane and two boats to search for the dead and survivors.

Senegal’s coasts are one of the main departure points for thousands of refugees and migrants heading to Europe.

The Atlantic route is particularly perilous due to the strong currents. Thousands of deaths and disappearances occur every year on overloaded, often unseaworthy boats.

The route from Africa to the Canary Islands has seen a 154 percent surge in people making the journey this year with 21,620 crossings to the archipelago in the first seven months of 2024, according to data from the European Union’s border agency.

Spanish authorities said as many as 150,000 more people from Africa may be set to make the crossing this year.

Years of conflict in the Sahel region, unemployment and the impact of climate change on farming communities are among the reasons why people attempt the crossing.

Family members, friends and community members gather along the beach as they wait for search and rescue teams to find survivors and retrieve the dead after a pirogue carrying over a hundred migrants sunk off the coast of Senegal [John Wessels/AFP]