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03-01-2026
BANJUL: Seven bodies were recovered and 96 people rescued after a boat potentially carrying more than 200 migrants capsized overnight in northwest Gambia, the country’s defence ministry said on Thursday, adding search and recovery operations were continuing.
It was the latest deadly incident along one of the world’s most dangerous migrant routes frequented mostly by West Africans trying to reach Spain via the Canary Islands.
The boat was reported to have capsized around midnight in the vicinity of a village in Gambia’s North Bank region, and it was later found “grounded on a sandbank,” the defence ministry said in the statement.
The subsequent rescue mission involved three naval speedboats, a coastal patrol vessel and “a local fishing canoe” whose operators volunteered to help, the statement said.
Ten of the rescued migrants were in critical condition and receiving urgent medical attention, it said, without giving their nationalities.
More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58% increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras.
However during the first 11 months of 2025, irregular migration into the European Union along the West African route fell 60%, according to the EU’s border agency Frontex.
The drop is largely due to stronger prevention efforts by departure countries working with EU member states, Frontex has said.
At least 70 people were killed in August 2025 when a boat believed to have departed from Gambia carrying migrants capsized in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years.
In August last year, at least 70 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of West Africa, Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry said, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years along a popular migration route to Europe.
Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel, believed to have departed from Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.
It was carrying an estimated 150 passengers, 16 of whom had been rescued. Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday, and witness accounts suggest over 100 may have died, the statement said.
The Atlantic migration route from the coast of West Africa to the Canary Islands, typically used by African migrants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world’s deadliest.
More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands last year, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58% increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras.
Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry implored its nationals to “refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys, which continue to claim the lives of many”.
More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58% increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras.
However during the first 11 months of 2025, irregular migration into the European Union along the West African route fell 60%, according to the EU’s border agency Frontex.
The drop is largely due to stronger prevention efforts by departure countries working with EU member states, Frontex has said. (Int’l News Desk)
