No fewer than seven souls lost their lives and many others are missing following a boat transporting around 200 migrants seeking to enter the European continent sank off the coast of The Gambia, reports confirm.
The boat overturned in the early hours of Thursday in the vicinity of the village of Jinack in the North Bank Region and it was later found "beached on a shoal", the Gambian military authorities said in a statement.
96 individuals have been saved to date and a search is continuing for those still missing who were on board the sunken boat that was bound for the Canary Islands of Spain.
The dangerous voyage over the Atlantic has emerged as a rising pathway for African migrants trying to reach European nations.
Nearly forty-seven thousand migrants made it to the Canaries in 2024 and data indicates more than 9,000 people have died trying.
Search and Rescue Efforts
After Wednesday's accident, The Gambian Navy launched a search-and-rescue operation, involving a number of military boats and a commercial fishing craft that joined the effort, the defence ministry confirmed.
Officials state some of the deceased are foreign nationals and that their identities are still being verified.
The bodies of the seven people who died have been retrieved, and a dozen of the saved are described as being in grave health and getting immediate medical attention.
A Common Migration Route
Gambia is a common pathway used by migrants seeking to get to the EU, often on perilous trips across ocean and terrain.
Recently, the European Union has established pacts with several Maghreb states designed to limiting illegal migration.
