Fri 30 October 2020:
At least 140 migrants trying to reach Europe drowned off the coast of Senegal when their boat caught fire and capsized, a U.N. agency said on Thursday. It marked the deadliest shipwreck recorded in 2020, and happened along a route where at least 414 people have now died this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a news release.
The boat carrying 200 passengers caught fire and capsized on Saturday a few hours after leaving the fishing town of Mbour, 100km (62 miles) south of the capital, Dakar, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
The perilous sea passage from West Africa to the Canary Islands was once a major route for those seeking an escape from poverty. Attempts became scarcer when Spain stepped up patrols in the mid-2000s, but the route is seeing a surge this year.
Senegal’s government and the IOM arranged a mission to travel to Saint-Louis to assess the needs of survivors and provide immediate psycho-social assistance.
The number of departures from West Africa to the Canary Islands has significantly increased in recent weeks, with 14 boats carrying 663 migrants in September alone, according to the IOM.
There have been roughly 11,000 arrivals to the Canary Islands this year, compared to 2,557 arrivals during the same period last year, IOM statistics showed.
Some 414 people are known to have died along this route in 2020, up from 210 fatalities in 2019.
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