Puluhan orang hilang setelah kapal nelayan berangkat dari perbatasan Senegal dan Gambia dengan 170 orang diyakini berada di atas kapal. Setidaknya 89 imigran dan pengungsi yang hendak menuju Eropa meninggal, dengan puluhan masih hilang, ketika perahu mereka terbalik di lepas pantai Mauritania, menurut media negara. Kapal nelayan terbalik pada hari Senin sekitar 4km dari kota pantai barat daya negara Afrika Barat itu, Ndiago. Penjaga pantai Mauritania menemukan 89 jenazah dan menyelamatkan sembilan orang, termasuk seorang gadis berusia lima tahun, kata agensi berita negara pada hari Kamis. Selamat yang dikutip oleh media negara mengatakan kapal tersebut berangkat dari perbatasan Senegal dan Gambia dengan 170 orang di atas kapal, yang berarti 72 orang sekarang hilang. Pejabat pemerintah senior mengonfirmasi informasi tersebut kepada kantor berita AFP. Kapal terbalik karena angin kencang dan gelombang tinggi di jalur Atlantik yang berbahaya, dikenal dengan arus kuatnya. Imigran melakukan perjalanan di kapal yang kelebihan muatan, seringkali tidak layak laut, tanpa cukup air minum. Earlier this year, the European Union promised Mauritania, a former French colony, financial support worth 210m euros ($229m) to tackle migration and provide humanitarian aid for migrants. The agreement came amid a steep increase in the number of migrants setting off from the country towards Spain’s Canary Islands, located about 100km off the northwest coast of Africa. More than 5,000 people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day, according to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity. The vast majority were on the Atlantic route. Deadly land routes Increasing numbers opt to travel by land, with deaths of people crossing perilous routes in the Sahara presumed to be double those occurring at sea, according to a new report from the United Nations refugee and migration agencies and the Mixed Migration Centre research group. Refugees and migrants are increasingly traversing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labour and sexual exploitation are rife, said the report, released on Friday. The report, researched over three years, said that conflict and instability in countries including Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan are driving a rise in the number of journeys towards the Mediterranean. Migrants leave after Tunisian police dismantled a makeshift camp for refugees from sub-Saharan African countries in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis [File: Fethi Belaid/AFP] In total, 1,180 people are known to have died while crossing the Sahara desert between January 2020 to May 2024, but the toll is believed to be much higher, said the report, which drew on testimonies from more than 31,000 people. This year alone, more than 72,000 people have taken land routes to the Mediterranean, with 785 dying or going missing during that period, according to figures from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Libya has emerged as a primary transit point for people fleeing war and poverty. In March, authorities discovered a mass grave containing at least 65 bodies in the country’s western deserts. Algeria, Libya and Ethiopia were considered by respondents as the most dangerous transit countries. The report tallied hundreds of cases of organ removals, some migrants having agreed to them as a way to earn money. But most of the time, people are drugged and the organ is removed without their consent: They wake up, and a kidney is missing,” said UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel.
