As many as 63 people are believed to have died after a boat carrying mostly Senegalese migrants capsized off the Cape Verde islands on Monday. There are only 38 known survivors.
The Senegalese foreign affairs ministry said 101 people had been on board the wooden fishing boat which set off from the coastal town of Fass Boye on July 10. It was spotted more than a month later on August 14 near the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago.
Thirty-eight people, including four children aged 12 to 16, were rescued from the capsized boat by a Spanish fishing vessel, while the bodies of seven deceased people were recovered. The remainder of the passengers are presumed dead, according to a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Journalist Txema Santana put the death toll at "at least 63", in a Tweet on August 16.
Helena Maleno Garzón, founder of the organization Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders), said families in Fass Boye had contacted the group on July 20 after 10 days without hearing from loved ones on the boat.
The president of the local fishing association, Cheikh Awa Boye, said that survivors called home from Cape Verde after the rescue. He said two of his nephews are among those missing.
The fishing vessel that rescued the 38 migrants is operated by the tropical tuna fishing company PEVASA. An official from the company said the survivors were asking for help and were in a "bad state," according to the AP news agency.
Also read: Dozens of migrants rescued off Cape Verde, many feared dead
Number of crossing increases despite dangers
The journey by sea from West Africa to Spain is one of the world's most dangerous migration routes, but the number of migrants leaving from Senegal on unsafe wooden boats has increased significantly over the past year. Most people try to reach Spain's Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa.
Walking Borders says that nearly 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023.
According to Spanish Interior Ministry figures, nearly 10,000 people have reached the Canary Islands by sea from Africa so far this year.
On August 7, the Moroccan navy recovered the bodies of five Senegalese nationals and rescued 189 others after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara.
In 2021, an AP investigation found that at least seven migrant boats from northwest Africa had become lost in the Atlantic and were found drifting across the Caribbean and even off Brazil, carrying only lifeless bodies.
Also read: Morocco recovers five bodies, intercepts 245 migrants in two rescue operations