A small vessel carrying migrants and refugees sank off northwestern Senegal, leaving at least 21 people dead on Saturday.
The Senegalese Interior Ministry announced the death toll in a statement released on Sunday. The ministry confirmed that only one person had been rescued from the water alongside the recovered bodies.
Authorities described the casualty figures as provisional as of late Saturday. Search operations stayed active in the area, and local officials worked to provide assistance to the families of the victims.
The incident involved a pirogue-type flat-bottomed boat that capsized near the Loumpoul dunes. The site of the shipwreck lies within the Kebemer department, situated between the capital Dakar and the northern city of Saint-Louis.
Reports from the newspaper Le Soleil showed that the majority of those who lost their lives originated from the Leona and Thieppe districts located inside the same department.
Thousands of individuals have perished in recent years while attempting the dangerous sea crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands. Data from the migrant rights group Walking Borders indicates that 635 people died during the first five months of the year alone.
Meanwhile, Spanish authorities on the Canary Island of El Hierro declared an emergency on Saturday following a sudden wave of migrant boat arrivals. Officials on El Hierro stated that more than 3,300 people had landed on the island aboard approximately 30 boats since the beginning of November.
