13 Migrants Died in Boat Capsize off Morocco

At least 13 Senegalese migrants died after their boat capsized late last week off the coast of Morocco, according to the mayor of the same town.

The information is made public at a time when people are more aware of the migration route across the Atlantic Ocean, which stretches from the coast of West Africa to the Spanish Canary Islands. Along this route, several vessels have either sunk or disappeared.

According to the mayor, Oumar Cisse, 13 residents of the village of Rufisque, which is near to the capital Dakar, passed away.

He asserted that after talking to survivors, he discovered that a total of 18 people had died.

"They were in a 63-person pirogue that capsized," he said, referring to the long wooden fishing boats often used for irregular migrant crossings.

"The survivors are being looked after in the municipality of Dakhla", in southern Morocco, he added.

Cisse said he was working with local authorities to repatriate survivors.

He said six people from his town had also been hospitalised.

Moroccan authorities did not confirm the information.

Senegal's President Macky Sall "paid tribute to the memory of those who died in the recent accidents at sea", according to a government statement late Thursday.

He called on government to intensify controls at potential departure sites, as well as to deploy more "measures of surveillance, awareness-raising and support for youth" and reinforce public programs that "combat clandestine emigration".

On Tuesday, Morocco's navy said it had "rescued" nearly 900 irregular migrants -- 400 of whom were in its territorial waters -- in a one-week period this month.

Most were from sub-Saharan Africa.

At least 14 people died eight days ago when a pirogue capsized off the Senegalese city of Saint-Louis, near the border with Mauritania.

NGOs regularly report fatal shipwrecks in Moroccan, Spanish and international waters, with unofficial estimates putting the death toll in the dozens, if not hundreds.

Source: AFP