69 Killed As Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Mauritania

A boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Mauritania earlier this week, killing 69 people, officials report. 

The accident occurred late on Tuesday night when the migrants saw the lights of a town off the coast of Mauritania, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital Nouakchott, and “moved to one side, causing it to capsize,” a senior coastguard official told AFP.

One of the coast guard’s patrols had been able to rescue 17 people, the official said.

An earlier toll had put the number of dead at 49, but a senior coast guard official later revised it higher to 69.

According to a statement from the migrants, the boat had left The Gambia a week earlier with about 160 people on board, including Senegalese and Gambian nationals, the official added.

Drownings are frequent during the perilous crossing between Africa and Europe, with strong ocean currents and ramshackle vessels making the long journey particularly hazardous.

At least 10,457 migrants died, for example, while trying to reach Spain by sea in 2024, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.

Officials did not say where the migrants in Tuesday’s accident were headed.

On August 4, at least 76 people were killed and dozens were missing after a boat carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants sank off Yemen, in the latest tragedy on the perilous sea route, officials told AFP on Monday.

Yemeni security officials said 76 bodies had been recovered and 32 people rescued from the shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.

The UN’s migration agency said 157 people were on board.

The accident occurred off Abyan governorate in southern Yemen, a frequent destination for boats smuggling African migrants hoping to reach the wealthy Gulf states.

On August 13, at least 20 migrants died after a boat overturned in the Mediterranean, with many more still missing, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

Italian news agency Radio Radicale said the boat had been carrying 97 people when it shipwrecked 14 miles southwest of Lampedusa.

Although details were sketchy at the time of the report, Save the Children Italy said that a baby girl, aged one-and-a-half, appeared to be lost in the shipwreck.