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26-07-2024
NOUAKCHOTT: Twenty-five migrants have been killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Mauritania, according to the country’s news agency, with dozens missing.
The incident took place near the capital city of Nouakchott. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that more than 190 people were still missing and that a rescue operation was underway to recover people.
The Mauritanian coastguard rescued 103 migrants and recovered 25 bodies a coastguard commander said.
The IOM said around 300 people had boarded a wooden pirogue boat in Gambia, and spent seven days at sea before the boat capsized on 22 July.
Fifteen were confirmed dead when the coastguard arrived, while 10 others were admitted to hospital for urgent medical care.
Ibba Sarr, a fishmonger at a Nouakchott fish market, told the Reuters news agency that strong winds in the past two days had moved the bodies closer to the shore.
Sarr said he saw around 30 bodies being collected from the beach.
“Surely other lifeless bodies will be discovered in the next two days.”
The disaster follows a similar incident on 5 July, when Mauritanian coastguards recovered the bodies of 89 migrants from a capsized boat.
The IOM said many migrants were seeking to reach the Canary Islands, located off the coast of Morocco. The route from West Africa to the Spanish territory is one of the world’s deadliest.
More than 5,000 migrants were killed trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of 2024, according to charity Ca-minando Fronteras.
40,000 people arrived in the Canary Islands last year, more than twice as many as in 2022, according to Spanish government data.
In April, the EU gave Mauritania €210m (£177m; $225m) in aid, almost €60m of which is earmarked for the fight against undocumented migration to Europe.
Earlier, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has been re-elected as head of state following Saturday’s national vote, winning comfortably in the first round without the need for a run-off.
The electoral commission website shows he took over 56% of the vote, beating six opposition candidates.
In second position was anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid with 22%, while Hamadi Sidi el-Mokhtar of the Islamist Tewassoul party came third with 13%.
On Sunday, Abeid said he would not recognize the results, calling it an “electoral coup”.
Before this year’s election, the third-place candidate, Mokhtar, warned that his party would not accept the results if it suspected rigging, the media reports.
President Ghazouani, a former army chief, is credited with establishing stability since his first election five years ago, after decades of political unrest and frequent coups.
He has been allies with Western partners such as France and the US, but has also kept ties with junta-led neighbors including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which have pivoted towards Russia in recent years.
Mauritania has largely avoided the Islamist insurgencies affecting neighboring Sahel state.
Slavery is still a scourge in the country despite being outlawed, and anti-slavery activists have faced torture and detention.
Thousands of black Mauritanians are enslaved. About 3% of the country’s total population are living as slaves, according to the Global Slavery Index (GSI) in 2023. (Int’l News Desk)
