Migrant boat capsizes off Mauritania, killing 69

A boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Mauritania earlier this week, killing 69 people, officials told AFP Friday, the latest deadly sea crossing on the frequent migration path.

Thousands of would-be migrants have died in recent years seeking to make the sea trip from Africa to Spain and other European countries.

The accident occurred late on Tuesday night when the migrants on the boat saw the lights of a town off the coast of Mauritania, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital Nouakchott and "moved to one side, causing it to capsize", a senior coastguard official told AFP.

One of the coast guard's patrols had been able to rescue 17 people, the official said.

An earlier toll had put the number of dead at 49 but the senior coast guard official later revised it higher to 69.

According to a statement from the migrants, the boat had left The Gambia a week earlier with about 160 people on board, including Senegalese and Gambian nationals, the official added.

Drownings are frequent during the perilous crossing between Africa and Europe, with strong ocean currents and ramshackle vessels making the long crossing dangerous.

At least 10,457 migrants died, for example, while trying to reach Spain by sea in 2024, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.

The number amounts to an average of 30 deaths per day, up from around 18 in 2023.

Officials did not say where the migrants in Tuesday's accident were headed.

In late July, around 75 west African migrants were rescued off the coast of Mauritania after their boat suffered an engine failure.

Mauritania is a key staging post for undocumented migrants from across the African continent who take the dangerous sea route from west Africa to Europe.

Human Rights Watch said in a report earlier this week that Mauritania's security forces had committed "serious human rights violations" against migrants and asylum seekers ranging from torture to rape over the past five years.

The report said the victims were largely West and Central Africans "seeking to leave or transit the country".

It added that the abuses were "exacerbated" by the European Union and Spain, which had continued to outsource immigration management to Mauritania.

However, Mauritania's government has taken recent steps that "may improve protection for migrants and their rights", HRW said.