Dozens presume dead after refugee boat disaster off Cape Verde

Praia, The Gulf Observer: Sixty-three people are believed to have died after a refugee boat from Senegal was found off West Africa’s Cape Verde islands, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

The 38 survivors included four children aged 12 to 16, IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli told AFP news agency on Wednesday.

The long wooden fishing vessel, known as a pirogue, was spotted on Monday in the Atlantic Ocean about 277 nautical kilometres from the Cape Verdean island of Sal, police said.

The Spanish fishing vessel that saw it alerted Cape Verdean authorities.

The Cape Verde archipelago lies about 600 kilometres off the coast of West Africa on the maritime migration route to the Spanish Canary Islands – a gateway to the European Union.

Emergency services recovered the remains of seven people, Msehli told AFP, while another 56 people are believed to be missing.

“Generally, when people are reported missing following a shipwreck, they are presumed dead,” she said.

The boat left the Senegalese fishing village of Fasse Boye on July 10 with 101 people on board, Senegal’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, citing survivors.

Apart from one person from Guinea-Bissau, they were all Senegalese. The authorities have not, for the moment, said what happened to the boat once it set off.

But Abdou Karim Sarr, an officer with the local fisherman’s association the CLPA, told AFP: “Those missing are all dead.”