Boat with 30 decomposing bodies found off Senegal coast

At least 30 decomposing bodies have been found on a boat off the coast of Senegal, military authorities say.

The navy was informed of a vessel that was adrift about 70km (45 miles) from the capital Dakar, according to a military statement on X. They brought the wooden canoe, or pirogue, into port on Monday morning.

“Recovery, identification and transfer operations are being made extremely delicate by the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies,” the statement said.

There has been a recent increase in migrants setting off from Senegal for Spain’s Canary Islands – a journey of more than 1,500km (950 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean.

Given how decomposed the bodies were, the migrants were probably adrift on the Atlantic Ocean for many days before fishermen found them.

Investigations are underway to determine when and where the boat departed, and how many people were on board, the army said.

“We must avoid this type of journey. It is a kind of suicide,” said Dakar boat owner Mandiaye Diène.

He told the BBC that swordfish fishermen, who go more than 60km off the coast, often come across floating bodies or boats with lifeless bodies drifting on the waters.

“It’s a sad fate. I certainly don’t support this form of emigration, but people are desperate,” said Bassirou Mbengue, a fisherman and boat owner.

Some Senegalese fishermen say they can’t survive by fishing any longer because of the presence of foreign trawlers off the coast, so they turn to either migration, or offering their boats to be used by people smugglers.

“It’s dangerous to travel by sea to Europe. I would never do it and neither would my children. But you can’t blame those who go. There are no fish left on our coasts and fishing equipment is expensive,” said Mr Mbengue, 50.

In August, at least 14 decomposing bodies, believed to have been Senegalese migrants, were found off the coast of the Dominican Republic by a local fisherman.

Senegal’s government announced a 10-year plan in August to tackle illegal migration amid a surge in migrant-related deaths.

The authorities have intercepted hundreds of migrants on boats off the country’s coast in recent weeks.

Despite frequent tragedies, unemployment, conflict and poverty drive young men to risk the route from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Boubacar Sèye, President of Horizons sans Frontières, an NGO that raises awareness on the effects of illegal immigration, told the BBC that “given the recurrence of this type of tragedy, we can say that this is no longer a cyclical phenomenon, but rather a structural one”.

“To stop this, we need to attack the problem at source, with new ways of raising awareness in the most vulnerable areas”, says Mr Sèye.

For him, “despair is total”, for many people to the point where “the most vulnerable people think they have no future in the country”.

Young West African migrants have been increasingly using the Canary Islands route to reach Europe because it involves a single, albeit dangerous, journey rather than needing to cross both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

Frontex, the European border agency, reported that in 2023 the Atlantic route saw a 161% increase compared to the previous year.

The UN says about 40,000 migrants made it to the Canary Islands last year.

Nearly 1,000 are known to have died or disappeared on the way. Although the real number is likely to be far higher.

Additional reporting by Natasha Booty