InfoMigrants

Mauritania's coast guard has said it rescued 132 migrants from a boat off the coast on Wednesday (November 26), among them 104 Senegalese nationals. Most of the rest were originally from Gambia.

The group of migrants set off from Senegal on November 20 and were intercepted off Mauritania on Wednesday (November 26), declared a statement issued by the Mauritanian coast guard.

There were reportedly 20 women and three minors, as well as a small baby on board. According to reports in the French-speaking press, 104 of the migrants on board were Senegalese, six came from Guinea and the 22 remaining passengers were from Gambia; seven of these were female, six adults and one minor.

InfoMigrants French reported that those on board had been at sea for about six days when they were intercepted, after leaving from Mbour, south of Senegal’s capital Dakar, on the evening of November 20.

Abandoned at sea?

After being intercepted, the migrants were brought into the port of Nouadhibou. Some of those rescued spoke to local media and reportedly said that the captain of the boat had left the migrants to their fate after the boat broke down, losing all its diesel at sea.

The distance from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott to the Canary Island is more than 1,000 kilometers | Source: Google Maps

This rescue follows a similar one in mid-November, reported the Turkish news agency Anadolu. On that occasion, they rescued 227 migrants from a vessel that had departed Gambia. They were discovered off the north-western coast of Mauritania, not far from Nouadhibou. That boat had reportedly been drifting for ten days before it was picked up.

In a press release at the time, the Mauritanian authorities said that the migrants on board were in a state of "total exhaustion, hunger and thirst," when they were finally discovered. Some of the survivors on that boat reportedly told the authorities they had been subject to serious violent incidents on board, although more details were not given.

A migration transit point

In recent years, Nouadhibou has become a migrant transit hub for those seeking to reach Europe, either by departing the coast or traveling by land through North Africa and across the Mediterranean.

The Mauritanian authorities have signed a number of agreements with the EU, most notably in bilateral agreements with Spain. As part of the agreements, Spain and the EU have agreed to offer aid and training to Mauritania in return for tighter controls on migration by the country’s authorities.

File photo used as illustration: Mauritania had become a major transit hub for migrants hoping to reach Europe, but now the authorities are cracking down on attempts to cross the sea or land routes | Photo: Felipe Dana / AP Photo / picture alliance

In response to these agreements, Mauritania has stepped up its patrols in recent months, intercepting dozens of boats carrying migrants attempting to cross the Atlantic towards the Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, the Canary Islands.

Managing migration

On October 17, Mauritania and Spain announced that thanks to their cooperation, they had prevented around 3,500 crossing attempts towards the Canary Islands since the beginning of the year.

Throughout 2024, they claimed to have stopped over 10,000 attempts to reach Europe. The number of attempts is not always equal to the number of people, since many people will try multiple times before perhaps reaching their destination.

Between January and April 2025, the Mauritanian authorities said they intercepted more than 30,000 migrants on land while attempting to migrate. The authorities also said that in those four months, they uncovered 88 smuggling networks.

Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez (left), and the president of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazuani (right), during a meeting at the presidential palace on August 27, 2024, in Nouakchott (Mauritania) during which both countries promised to step up controls on migration | Photo: picture alliance / Pool Moncloa / Europapress

In neighboring Senegal, interceptions of smugglers and migrants have also increased. There, the authorities said they stopped around 1,900 attempts to cross the sea in the first quarter of 2024. That’s according to data released in September by the Senegalese Interministerial Committee on the Fight Against Irregular Migration (CILMI). Spain has also signed agreements with the Gambian authorities aimed at preventing departures from that country.

The interceptions do seem to be taking effect on the corresponding numbers of arrivals in the Canary Islands. Between January 1 and November 15, 14,690 migrants arrived on the Canary Islands, compared to 39,713 in the equivalent period in 2024. Those figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry represent a decrease of 63 percent.

New departure points increase dangers

The increased controls by Mauritania and Senegal have meant that more and more migrant boats are attempting longer and even more dangerous journeys, departing from ports in Gambia or Guinea and then attempting to travel further out to sea to evade the coast guards near Senegal and Mauritania.

These longer journeys increase the risks for migrants traveling on board the boat. It means they spend longer at sea, with the risks of bad weather, currents, breakdowns of the boat, and running out of food and water increasing the longer they are on the water. From these more distant departure points, even if everything goes well, the journey to the Canary Islands can take at least four to seven days. But boats that are overloaded, and often run out of fuel mid-journey, are even more susceptible to the strong currents and winds on the wild Atlantic Ocean.

File photo used as illustration:The wreck of a traditional Mauritanian fishing boat, known as a pirogue sits on a beach near Nouadhibou, Mauritania in 2021 | Photo: Felipe Dana /AP Photo/ picture alliance

Delphine Perrin, a specialist on migration policies in Africa, recently told InfoMigrants French that another risk is the behavior of the smuggling gangs themselves. Some migrants have reported violence towards them at sea while on board the boats.

It is difficult to calculate exactly how many people may have died on route to the Canary Islands since the numbers of departures are not registered and many don’t even tell their families when they decide to migrate. However, the NGO Caminando Fronteras estimates that more than 10,000 people may have died during the course of 2024 in the hope of reaching Spain via various routes. The UN Migration Agency‘s Missing Migrants project states that more than 1,000 actually did die on the Canary Islands route.

Those who have survived to tell the tale often report seeing "ghost ships" float past them in the Atlantic, some with bodies still on board. Other ships will sink without a trace, far from anyone who might have witnessed their end.