Hundreds Die at Sea Off Senegal's Coast on a Perilous Route to Europe
Source: New York Times
Those attempting to migrate from West Africa to Europe are once again taking a route so dangerous it’s known as “Barcelona or die.”
An estimated 150 migrants are thought to have died after the wooden boat they were traveling in was shipwrecked off the coast of Senegal on Friday, the latest in a deadly series of accidents for those trying a dangerous sea route around northwest Africa to reach Europe that had become less popular in recent years.
The boat capsized and many of the passengers drowned, according to Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants stranded at sea, and Senegalese firefighters who saw the aftermath on the beach. It had been less than a week since the last such disaster, in which at least 140 people trying to get to Europe drowned when their boat caught fire.
Both boats had been going to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago 60 miles off the Moroccan coast, which in recent months has received dozens of boatloads of travelers as other routes through the Sahara and across the Mediterranean to Europe became more difficult and dangerous.
There has been a resurgence in clandestine emigration by sea, the Senegalese government said in a statement last week. It said it was carrying out surveillance operations by air and by sea, and had arrested 28 people suspected of trafficking migrants.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/world/africa/senegal-migrants-drown.html
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