More than 60 migrants are feared dead after a Spanish fishing vessel rescued a boat off the Atlantic archipelago of Cape Verde that originally had more than 100 people aboard, authorities and migrant advocates said Thursday.
Seven bodies were found on the boat and an estimated 56 people are missing at sea and presumed dead, said International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesperson, Safa Msehli.
According to Senegal’s foreign affairs ministry, 38 people were rescued earlier in the week near Cape Verde, about 620 kilometers off the coast of West Africa.
The Spanish migration advocacy group Walking Borders said the vessel was a large fishing boat, called a pirogue, which had left Senegal on July 10.
Families in Fass Boye, a seaside town 145 kilometres north of the capital, Dakar, reached out to Walking Borders on July 20, after 10 days without hearing from loved ones on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzón said.
Nearly 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, Walking Borders said. Worsening youth unemployment, political unrest, violence by armed groups and climate change push migrants across West Africa to risk their lives on overcrowded boats.
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