APA-Dakar (Senegal) – On September 6, the Senegalese Navy intercepted 118 suspected irregular migrants off the coast of Saint-Louis (North).
On July 27, Senegal launched its National Strategy to Combat Irregular Migration (SNLMI). Nevertheless, clandestine departures to Europe have increased in recent weeks.
According to the French Navy, just yesterday, Wednesday, September 6, its Walo patrol boat boarded a pirogue carrying 118 suspected irregular migrants 180 km off the coast of Saint-Louis. This brings to 1,500 the number of irregular migrants intercepted at sea since May.
In the last two weeks, “a total of 1,015 people have been disembarked by French naval units, illustrating a clear increase in attempts at irregular emigration during this period,” the French navy wrote in a press release, stressing that it had “deployed significant human and material resources to protect human life at sea.”
On August 15, a pirogue carrying 100 Senegalese irregular migrants and one Bissau-Guinean was rescued off the coast of Cape Verde. Only 38 of the suspected irregular migrants, who left Fass Boye (West) on July 18, were found alive.
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