BANJUL/ATHENS: At least 70 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of West Africa, Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry said on Friday, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years along a popular migration route to Europe.

Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel, believed to have departed from Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.

It was carrying an estimated 150 passengers, 16 of whom had been rescued. Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday, and witness accounts suggest over 100 may have died, the statement said.

The Atlantic migration route from the coast of West Africa to the Canary Islands, typically used by African mig­rants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world’s deadliest.

More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands last year, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58pc increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras. Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry implored its nationals to “refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys, which continue to claim the lives of many”.

Two drown near Greek island

Two would-be migrants, an adult man and a girl, were found dead on Saturday morning on a beach of the southeastern Aegean island of Rhodes, Greek Coa­s­tguard said.

The pair, believed to have drowned, were found on the Mavros Kavos beach by coast guard officers, who also located three more new arrivals alive. According to the local Rodiaki news site, the victims been aboard a smuggler’s inflatable boat which abandoned its passengers a short distance from the coast and returned to open water. The two set off from the coast of Turkiye along with ten other people, who managed to reach the beach, it added. In addition, 38 migrants were found by the Greek police in the nearby Gennadi area of Rhodes.

All 41 survivors are being transferred to the island’s port authority while the bodies were carried to Rhodes’ General Hospital, the Greek coastguard said. Greece’s proximity to North Africa and the Middle East has long placed the country at the heart of perilous migration routes to Europe for people escaping conflict, persecution and poverty.

The government has declared a three-month suspension on asylum requests from any persons arriving by sea from North Africa.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2025