At least 14 lifeless bodies were found after a pirogue capsized on the night of Sunday to Monday, July 24, 2023 off Dakar, Senegal, said Samba Kandji, deputy mayor of the Ouakam district and a source of the gendarmerie.
‘They are migrants a priori,’ said Mr Kandji. Gendarmes and firefighters are on the beach of Ouakam, a district of the Senegalese capital, and continue Monday morning rescue operations in search of other bodies.
“The navy forced the boat to dock and people fled. I was told 14 (dead) but then two bodies came out. It can be assumed that there were 16” deaths, Kandji said a few minutes later.
A wooden boat, on which migrants were found, according to several witnesses on the beach, floats on the water near the bank.
A firefighter assured anonymously that search operations had begun at 01:00 hours.
The migratory route of the Canary Islands, a gateway to Europe in the Atlantic Ocean, has seen a marked increase in activity in recent weeks from the coasts of northwestern Africa.
Several tragedies have been recorded in the last two weeks. At least 13 migrants from around Dakar died in the sinking of their boat about a week ago off the coast of Morocco. Another boat capsized in Saint-Louis, in northern Senegal, killing at least 14 people.
