A boat carrying at least 30 bodies has been found off the coast of Senegal.

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On Sunday evening, a boat carrying at least 30 decomposing bodies washed ashore. Found It is about 70 kilometers off the coast of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The news was published by the Senegalese army, which brought it back to shore on Monday. Its spokesman Ibrahima Sow He said The state of the bodies is slowing down the process of identifying the people on board, and investigations are underway to find out where it all started. It is likely that these were migrants who left Senegal or another West African country and were trying to reach the Canary Islands in Spain.

In the last two years, the arrival of migrants to the Canary Islands from the coasts of West Africa, especially from Senegal and Mauritania, has increased significantly: last year there were about 40,000, the highest number ever recorded, and this year they remain Nearly 27 thousandincluding many unaccompanied minors. The so-called “Atlantic route” is also extremely dangerous: a journey of more than 1,500 kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean, which has currents much stronger than those of the Mediterranean.

In June, the NGO Caminando Fronteras, which has been working on this route for years, It is estimated That 6,007 died on the Atlantic route in 2023 and 5,054 in the first five months of 2024. For comparison: in the whole of 2023, it is estimated that around 1,900 people died in the Central Mediterranean, that is, the route that runs from North Africa to the Italian coasts.

The number of deaths on the Atlantic route is underestimated: compared to the Mediterranean, it is actually much easier for boats to capsize offshore and never be found again due to strong currents and the almost total absence of supervision of the route by coastguards and NGOs. Some boats do not sink but go astray and are found adrift months after their departure, thousands of kilometres away, as happened for example in April with A boat has reached the coast of Brazil. Which is likely to have left Mauritania.

At the end of August, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal to sign agreements that would reduce the number of arrivals by sea and instead agree on channels for legal access to Spanish territory, for a limited period of time, from the three countries. Two weeks ago Senegalese government Advertise A ten-year plan to reduce departures. Sanchez is trying to take a different approach than Italy and the European Union, which has focused on paying transit countries to stop forced departures, without worrying much about the human rights abuses they commit against their own migrants.

– Read also: Many young and lonely migrants arrive in the Canary Islands.