DAKAR: A small boat carrying migrants sank off northwestern Senegal killing at least 21 people in the latest tragedy along the dangerous Atlantic Ocean route from Africa to Europe, authorities said.
The Senegalese interior ministry said that only one person had been rescued in addition to the 21 bodies recovered, which added to the thousands who have died in recent years trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands from West Africa.
The ministry said the death toll was “provisional” and that the search was still going on. Media reports said the pirogue-type flat-bottom boat capsized on Saturday off the Loumpoul dunes in Kebemer department, between Dakar and the northern city of Saint-Louis.
However Saliou Diouf, founder of Senegal’s main migrant aid association Boza Fii, said that “the sinking occurred on Friday”. The nationalities of all the victims had not been confirmed, he said.
Greek coastguards rescue 28 from migrant boat off Crete
“But the bodies recovered yesterday (Saturday) are Senegalese,” he added. Thousands of people from West Africa try each year to reach Europe on the perilous Atlantic route.
Senegalese authorities also said they had intercepted 142 migrants on Friday who were on a similar small boat aiming to reach Spain.
The group included 23 women, two babies and two other children, and were from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Nigeria, according to police. The Senegalese government on Saturday stressed “its determination to combat people smuggling networks, notably through strengthened cooperation with neighbouring countries,” the interior ministry said in a statement.
Spanish authorities on the Canary Island of El Hierro declared an emergency on Saturday after a surge in migrant boat arrivals.
Boat in distress
Greek coastguards said on Sunday rescuers had found the body of a man and dragged to safety 28 other people on a migrant boat in distress off the island of Crete.
Maritime police launched an emergency rescue after the boat issued an alarm signal, with winds of 40-50 kilometres an hour making sea conditions difficult, the coastguard said.
The survivors, all reportedly Sudanese, were picked up by another boat sailing nearby, then transferred to a police vessel and taken to the port of Heraklion on Crete, the agency said. On Wednesday, 59 people were reported missing after their boat capsized off the island, according to a 23-year-old Bangladeshi man who survived. No bodies have yet been found.
Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2026
