A boat carrying 300 passengers capsized near Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, resulting in 15 deaths and over 150 missing, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Reuters reports.
The incident occurred on the perilous Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands. The Mauritanian coastguard rescued 120 people, with 10 hospitalized. The boat had traveled from Gambia and had been at sea for seven days before the accident. Strong winds have pushed bodies closer to shore, and around 30 bodies have been collected from the beach, with more expected to be found.
The Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands, one of the deadliest, saw over 19,700 migrants between January and mid-July 2024, a 160% increase from the previous year. Nearly 5,000 migrants died at sea in the first five months of 2024., according to Walking Borders.
