Scores saved in Senegal migrant vessel mishap
PRAIA - A boat carrying Senegalese migrants washed up in Cape Verde after being adrift at sea for several days, the authorities said Tuesday, adding that one person had died but scores had been saved.
The vessel, a large canoe also called a pirogue, beached on Sunday on Sal, a popular vacation island in the Cape Verde archipelago, local police chief Orlando Evora told AFP.
Sixty-four Senegalese and two Gambians were saved, although the number of people who had been onboard is unclear, he said.
“The police have launched an inquiry to see if the boat was carrying other migrants and to find out what happened onboard,” he said.
Evora said six “Senegalese citizens” walked into Pedra de Luma, a village best known for a former salt mine, on Sunday evening.
They asked for help, explaining that their boat had come aground nearby and saying that other migrants were in need.
The survivors were taken to a local hospital for examination, but only seven were kept for further treatment.
Most of them were suffering from exhaustion, although one died several hours later, Evora said.
The migrants have been given shelter in two tents near a sports centre in Espargos, the main town on Sal.
In Senegal, a source close to the national coastguard said 63 Senegalese had been onboard, two of them minors, and they were believed to be from Mbour and Saly, coastal towns about 80 kilometres south of the capital.
Two Gambians were also onboard, the source said.
“Some people aboard the canoe reportedly did not survive,” the source said, without giving further details.
Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, lies around 500 kilometres from the coast of Senegal.
Hundreds of West Africans have died in the eastern Atlantic this year while trying to make the crossing to Spain’s Canary Islands, the springboard on the migrant route to Europe.
The Canaries lie more than 100 km from the coast of Africa at their closest point, but the route is perilous, and many boats are overcrowded, underpowered and in poor shape.
At least 251 people died attempting the crossing between January 1 and September 17, according to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), compared to 210 fatalities for the whole of last year.
In addition to these, 140 died in a sinking in October, it says, giving a toll disputed by the Senegal government.
More than 1 500 migrants have been intercepted in Senegalese waters in recent days, the Senegalese police said last week.
The Atlantic route has been used more and more as the authorities have clamped down on the other main migration route in West Africa, which goes up by road through the Sahara in Niger and Libya to the Mediterranean coast.