APA-Dakar (Senegal) Despite the high death toll, irregular migration continues to attract Africans desperate to leave the continent.
On the Senegalese coast, the number of people leaving for Europe has not decreased. But it’s been several months since such a large number of deaths were recorded among them. On Wednesday, February 28, 24 bodies were recovered from the Gokhou-Mbathie beach in Saint-Louis, in the north of the country, where a boat carrying “more than 310 people” bound for Spain ran aground, according to media reports.
“At the moment, the number of victims we can give to the press is at least 45, including 24 dead bodies and 21 injured, three of them quite seriously. The 21 injured are being treated at the Saint-Louis regional hospital,” said the region’s governor, Alioune Badara Sambe, without giving further details.
“It is with deep sadness that I express my sympathy and solidarity following the tragic capsizing of a pirogue off Saint-Louis, which claimed the lives of some twenty migrants. At this difficult time, our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. The competent authorities are mobilized to provide them with support and assistance. May the souls of the deceased rest in peace,” said President Macky Sall.
Le Quotidien noted that the boat had left the island town of Joal, 86 kilometers from Dakar, on Wednesday morning before ending its journey on the shores of Saint-Louis.
On Tuesday, the French navy’s offshore patrol vessel Walo intercepted a pirogue carrying 154 suspected illegal migrants south of Dakar.
ODL/ac/lb/as/APA