Some 160 people were believed to be on board when the vessel capsized.
At least 49 people are dead and around 100 are missing after the vessel capsized (Image: EXPRESS)
At least 49 people died and some 100 remain missing after tragedy struck off the coast of Mauritania. A vessel carrying dozens of migrants capsized between Tuesday night and Wednesday, the Mauritanian coast guard and police force told AFP.
The accident happened when the migrants saw the lights of a town off the coast of Mauritania 50 miles north of the capital Nouakchott and “moved to one side, causing it to capsize”, a senior coasguard official told AFP. According to a statement from the migrants, the boat left The Gambia a week earlier and carried 160 people, including Senegalese and Gambian nationals.
Officials did not say where the migrants in Tuesday’s accident were headed. So far, patrols rescued 17 people. The 49 bodies have been recovered and buried.
The journey from Africa to Europe is notoriously dangerous, with treacherous ocean currents and poorly maintained boats putting lives at risk. In 2024 alone, the NGO Caminando Fronteras reported that at least 10,457 migrants lost their lives attempting to reach Spain by sea. In July last year, 89 migrants and refugees bound for Europe died as a boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania.
Boats at Barra beach after a December 2019 capsizing off Mauritania killed at least 62 people (Image: Getty)
Mauritania , on the edge of the Atlantic, is a key transit point for undocumented migrants from across Africa, many of whom attempt the dangerous Atlantic journey from West Africa to Europe. Mauritanian authorities reported having intercepted over 30,000 migrants between January and April 2025.
A new report from Human Rights Watch details that over the past five years, Mauritanian security forces have committed a range of serious abuses against migrants and asylum seekers, including torture and rape. The country, which has secured costly agreements with the European Union to prevent migrants from attempting the perilous Atlantic crossing to Europe, has defended the pushbacks as essential for combating human smuggling networks.
Caminando Fronteras reported that around 83% of the 7,270 people who arrived in the Canary Islands in January 2024 had departed from Mauritania. This marked a 1,184 percent increase compared with January 2023, when the majority of migrants were coming from Senegal.
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