The Mauritanian authorities have reported the rescue of more than 160 migrants, among them more than 15 minors, who had left The Gambia and spent more than a week sailing across the Atlantic on a route that usually has the Canary Islands as its final destination.
In a statement released on social media, the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime and Port Infrastructure of Mauritania detailed that the Coast Guard “detected and rescued” the 161 occupants of a boat after locating it off the capital, Nouakchott, when they “were attempting to arrive irregularly from Gambia”.
“The vessel departed from Banjul and was at sea for approximately eight days before being detected by Coast Guard units, which intervened to rescue all the people on board,” said the ministry, which specified that among those rescued are 99 Senegalese, 56 Guineans, and six Gambians, with a total of 17 minors.
The statement added that all of them have been taken to “a reception centre” in Nouakchott, and praised the work of the Coast Guard “in the supervision, rescue, and combating of irregular migration, while protecting human lives and managing humanitarian cases in line with established procedures.”
Mauritania, one of the main departure points for the Atlantic route to Europe, has communicated in recent weeks the interception of several vessels with hundreds of people on board, in a context of increased crossings in recent years, with the Canary Islands as the most common destination.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, around 6,800 people have lost their lives or are reported missing since 2014 in this migration corridor, a figure only surpassed by that of the Sahara Desert, where more than 7,150 deaths and disappearances have been documented.