A local official told AFP on Monday that a wooden boat carrying at least 15 people, most of whom were believed to be migrants, sank off the coast of the Senegalese capital Dakar.
After the pirogue capsized overnight from Sunday to Monday, police and rescue personnel were still searching for further corpses.
According to district deputy mayor Samba Kandji, “the navy told the vessel to draw alongside and they fled.”
Some others leaped off, but they weren’t swimming experts, he said AFP.
“A total of 17 victims have been counted,” Dakar Fire Chief Commander Martial Ndione told reporters, “including 15 lifeless bodies and two survivors.”
We received a report of a capsized pirogue off the coast of Ouakam this morning at approximately 3:30. Operations started right away after two teams of divers and four ambulances were sent to the location, according to Ndione.
The provenance of the boat, the number of individuals still missing, or the specifics of the capsize were all left out of his statement.
There was a wooden boat drifting close to the shore that multiple witnesses on the beach said had been transporting the victims.
An AFP reporter saw firefighters removing a corpse from the water and laying it on the sand.
On the beach, dozens of people saw the drama as it took place.
Amndy Moustapha Sene, 23, one of them, revealed his desire to play professional football in Europe.
“There is no future here, therefore I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. I was prepared to board a pirogue, but I’ve now made the decision to leave legally when the chance presents itself, he added, adding that the boats were too dangerous.
The migration path from northwest Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, which includes Spain’s Canary Islands, has seen an uptick in activity in recent weeks.
Midway through July, a pirogue capsized off Saint-Louis, Senegal, not far from the Mauritania border, killing at least 14 people.
The navy of Morocco claimed to have saved roughly 900 unauthorized immigrants in a single week this month. They mostly came from sub-Saharan Africa.
Unofficial estimates place the number of deadly shipwrecks in the dozens, if not hundreds. NGOs often record tragic shipwrecks in Moroccan, Spanish, and international seas.
Search operations have recently been conducted in Spain to look for missing migrant boats from Senegal carrying more than 300 people, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.
Senegalese President Macky Sall “paid tribute to the memory of those who died in recent accidents at sea” at a cabinet meeting on Thursday.
In addition to deploying additional “measures of surveillance, to raise awareness and support for youth,” and strengthening public initiatives to “combat clandestine emigration,” he urged the government to step up restrictions at possible departure points.