A minimum of seven people have died and a significant number are lost following a boat carrying about two hundred migrants attempting to reach Europe sank off the coast of Gambia, reports confirm.
The craft flipped late Wednesday night in the vicinity of the village of Jinack in the North Bank area and it was afterwards located "grounded on a sandbank", the nation's defense ministry announced officially.
Nearly one hundred people have been saved to date and a search is continuing for the remaining passengers who were traveling on the shipwrecked vessel that was heading towards the Canary Islands of Spain.
The dangerous voyage over the the Atlantic has grown into a more frequent path for African asylum seekers seeking entry into Europe.
Almost 47,000 people arrived at the Canary Islands in the year 2024 and figures suggest more than 9,000 people have died during the journey.
Search and Rescue Efforts
In the aftermath of the disaster, The Gambian Navy initiated a search operation, involving multiple navy ships and a fishing boat that came to assist, the defence ministry said.
Officials state some of the deceased are not from The Gambia and that their identities are still being verified.
The bodies of the seven individuals who drowned have been retrieved, and a dozen of the saved are described as being in serious condition and undergoing emergency treatment.
A Common Migration Route
The Gambia is one of the routes utilized by asylum seekers seeking to get to Europe, frequently via dangerous journeys by sea and land.
Over the past few years, the European Union has reached agreements with a number of North African nations with the goal of curtailing undocumented migration.
