At least 60 African migrants are feared dead after a boat carrying them sank off the coast of Cape Verde on Wednesday night, authorities say in a statement on Thursday.
Cape Verde emergency service officials said that almost all migrants on board the boat which was heading for the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory, enroute Europe, were thought to be from Senegal and had been lost at sea for over a month before they were discovered.
The officials added that 38 people, including women and children aged between 12 and 14, were rescued from the boat which sank on the island of Sal, an archipelago that sits around 600km off the coast of West Africa. It is one of the most dangerous journeys any migrant can make, according to the officials.
Safa Msehli, the spokeswoman
for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said the vessel was first spotted on Monday and a report was made to the police.
“The wooden pirogue style boat was seen on Monday almost 320km (200 miles) off Sal, a part of Cape Verde, by a Spanish fishing boat, which then alerted authorities,” Msehli told journalists.
“The survivors said the boat left the Senegalese fishing village of Fasse Boye on 10 July with 101 people on board.
“Nearly all those on the boat had grown up in the community and some local families were still waiting to hear whether their relatives were among the survivors,” she said.
“The survivors may have ended up in Cape Verde, but it was almost certainly not their intended destination,” she added.
The Senegalese Foreign Affairs ministry which has been alerted to the incident, said it was liaising with authorities in Cape Verde to arrange the repatriation of nationals.