At least 30 corpses have been found on a boat off the coast of Senegal.
The navy was informed of a vessel that was adrift circa 70km from Dakar, Senegal.
They brought the wooden canoe into port on Monday morning.
“Recovery, identification and transfer operations are being made extremely delicate by the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies,” the statement said.
There has been a recent increase in migrants heading from Senegal to Spain’s Canary Islands, 1,500km away.
This summer, 14 bodies of Senegalese migrants were found all way in the Dominican Republic’s coast.
Senegal, a poor country with a high unemployment rate, has faced so much migrant death that its government has announced a 10-year-plan to control illegal migration.
Authorities have already intercepted hundreds of migrants on boats.
Senegalese fishermen say they can no longer earn their livelihood thanks to the presence of foreign trawlers off the coast, and thus either migrate themselves or offer their boats to be used by people smugglers, reports the BBC.
European border agency Frontex reports that in 2023, the Atlantic route saw a 161% increase from 2022.
Ratiu Journalism Mentorship Program offers youngsters chance ‘to break into journalism’
