The Moroccan navy on Saturday (August 5) recovered the bodies of five Senegalese migrants while rescuing 189 others after their boat had capsized off the coast of the Western Sahara territory, Morocco's official news agency MAP reported.

According to MAP, citing an unidentified military source, 11 other migrants were in a "critical condition" and were taken to a hospital in the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara.

Their boat capsized on Saturday off Guerguerat, a village in the south of Western Sahara located close to the border with Mauritania, MAP said.

It is believed they were trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands, the AP news agency reported.

This latest tragedy comes some two weeks after at least five Moroccan nationals reportedly died in another shipwreck off Western Sahara.

The so-called Atlantic route from western and northwestern African countries to the Canaries is considered particularly dangerous due to its strong currents and high waves.

In late July, at least 16 migrants died in a boat accident off the coast of the Senegalese capital Dakar. According to police, the boat was sailing on the Atlantic Ocean towards the Canaries when it hit a rock and sank.

Read more: 'Each boat is in danger' – the rescue of migrants trying to reach the Canary Islands

56 migrants intercepted off Morocco

Three days after recovering the bodies and intercepting the sub-Saharan migrants off Western Sahara, the Moroccan navy on Tuesday (August 8) intercepted a different group of 56 sub-Saharan migrants further north off Morocco's southwestern coast, MAP reported on the same day.

Again citing an unidentified military source, MAP said that a "naval unit" was on patrol off the coast of the southern Moroccan city of Tan-Tan when it had to assist 56 "irregular migrants from sub-Saharan aboard a makeshift boat," according to MAP.

Pushed to take treacherous routes

The number of migrants -- including Moroccan nationals -- leaving in boats from Morocco towards Europe has recently seen a sharp increase.

Pushed by failing economies, poor job prospects, extremist violence, political unrest, and the adverse effects of climate change on the region as well as other factors, many migrants risk their lives on overcrowded boats to reach the Canary Islands, which are part of the European Union.

The majority of boats sailing to the Canaries set off from southern Morocco, about 150 kilometers away from the archipelago. Others attempt the crossing from Mauritania or Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, which was annexed by Morocco in 1975. These journeys are considerably longer.

Atlantic crossings began surging in late 2019 after increased patrols along Europe's southern coast dramatically reduced the number of Mediterranean crossings. In 2020, the UN migration agency IOM registered just over 23,000 migrant arrivals in the island group. In 2021 it fell slightly to 22,000 and last year, there were around 15,000 arrivals.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, more than 8,800 migrants from Africa have been counted as arrivals on the Atlantic archipelago so far this year (as of August 6).

Meanwhile, according to Spanish aid organization Caminando Fronteras, at least 778 people have died this year while trying to reach the Canaries from Africa. The IOM, which uses a different methodology, has recorded 77 missing migrants on the same route.

Both organizations say, however, that the real figure is likely to be much higher.

with AFP, AP