The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has expressed profound grief following a pair of deadly shipwrecks that left up to 144 migrants dead or missing in waters off Mauritania last week, as thousands of sub-Saharan Africans continue to risk their lives seeking passage to Europe in search of improved living conditions.
In statements released Tuesday, the UN refugee agency confirmed the two separate incidents unfolded between July 14 and 18, with rescue teams pulling 387 surviving migrants to safety over the course of the events. Discrepancies in casualty numbers from different authorities have not yet been reconciled as of Tuesday.
Mauritania’s national coast guard provided detailed accounts of the deadliest incident, in which a vessel carrying 160 Gambian migrants bound for the Spanish Canary Islands became stranded after running out of fuel. The boat drifted without power for 25 days off the coast near Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, leaving 122 people unaccounted for once rescuers reached the scene.
In the second unrelated incident, coast guard officials announced they had rescued 179 migrants who had departed Senegal on an unseaworthy vessel, bringing the total number of survivors across both events to 387.
In recent years, Mauritania’s territorial waters have emerged as a primary transit corridor for sub-Saharan African migrants fleeing widespread economic stagnation and limited job opportunities at home. The UNHCR emphasized that the migration route leading to the Canary Islands ranks among the most dangerous maritime migration routes on the planet, marked by enormous open-ocean crossings and frequently overcrowded, unfit vessels that put all passengers at extreme risk of disaster.