Seven bodies were found on the ship and an estimated 56 people were missing at sea and presumed dead, said Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration.
The Senegalese Foreign Ministry said 38 survivors had been rescued that week near Cape Verde, some 620 kilometers (380 miles) off the west African coast.
The Spanish activist group Caminando Fronteras, which defends the rights of migrants, said the ship was a large fishing vessel that left Senegal on July 10.
Families in Fass Boye, a coastal town 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Senegalese capital Dakar, had contacted Caminando Fronteras on July 20 after 10 days without hearing from their loved ones on the boat, the agency said. founder of the group, Helena Maleno Garzón.
Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the local fishermen’s guild, said he had two nephews among the missing. “They wanted to go to Spain,” Boye said.
Cape Verdean National Police said a Spanish fishing boat found the migrant boat on Monday morning, some 150 miles north of the archipelago’s Sal Island.
The Spanish vessel was unable to tow the other boat and took the survivors on board, according to a Cape Verdean police statement on Facebook.
The route from West Africa to Spain is one of the most dangerous in the world, but the number of people leaving Senegal in flimsy wooden boats has increased in the past year.
Nearly 1,000 migrants died trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, according to Caminando Fronteras. Factors such as youth unemployment, political instability and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats.
So far this year, almost 10,000 people have arrived by sea in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands from the northwestern African coast, according to figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.
On August 7, the Moroccan Navy recovered the bodies of five Senegalese migrants and rescued 189 others after their ship capsized near Western Sahara.
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Associated Press writers Babacar Dione and Barry Hatton contributed to this report.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
