Gambians are mourning victims of a migrant boat disaster off the Atlantic coast of Mauritania in which at least 63 people perished earlier this week, APA can report Friday.
Conflicting reports suggest that all aboard the boat were from The Gambia and that the 58 people who are now known to have died were from the country.
Gambians especially those active on social media have been struggling to come to terms with the enormity of the tragedy, with some even refusing to believe that there is still a strong desire among young people to travel abroad despite a series of campaigns aimed at discouraging the tendency, given the risks involved.
Writing on Facebook, Tijan Njie blamed the problem on smugglers who still posses the power to entice gullible would-be migrants to part with a fortune for such journeys that are fraught with risks.
“The Gambian public want answers, there are reports that the smugglers are all Gambians and in fact they collected hundreds of thousands of dalasis from these desperate youths” he wrote.
“We call for their immediate arrest and that smuggling people in to such dangerous journeys should henceforth carry the life sentence. The government should step up and protect young people from these criminals” he added.
President Adama Barrow who is on a statutory Meet the People Tour observed a minute’s silence before addressing a meeting in the coastal town of Tanji, 33km south of Banjul.
The ill-fated boat had set sail on Monday from the coastal ferry town of Barra, 2.74 nautical miles north of Banjul, apparently unnoticed.
It headed north with Spain as its ultimate destination when the boat hit a rock and disintegrated upon impact, causing it to capsize not far from the coast of Nouhadhibou in Mauritania whose authorities have revised the death toll upwards from 58 to 63.
Some eighty three of the victims managed to swim to safety.
On Friday local media in Banjul reported that among those who died was a promising rapper identified simply as Broozly.
The government in Banjul said its officials are collaborating with the authorities in Nouakchott and International Organisation for Migration workers over the tragedy.
According to IOM, the latest death of migrants at sea constitutes the largest along the western route for clandestine migration this year.
WN/as/APA