Hundreds reported missing as migrant boats disappear en route from Senegal to Spain

• At least 300 people traveling in three boats from Senegal to Spain have been reported missing, raising alarm about their well-being on one of the world’s most dangerous sea routes for migrants.
• According to a Spanish aid group called Walking Borders, two boats departed from Mbour, a coastal city in central Senegal, on June 23 with around 100 people, while a third boat left the southern town of Kafountine four days later carrying approximately 200 people.
• Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service reported that one of their planes spotted a vessel, resembling one of the missing boats, approximately 80 miles from the Canary Islands.

At least 300 people traveling from Senegal to Spain in three boats are missing, a Spanish aid group said Monday, raising concern about their fate along one of the deadliest sea routes for migrants.

Two boats departed June 23 from Mbour, a coastal city in central Senegal, carrying about 100 people, and a third left the southern town of Kafountine four days later with approximately 200 people, according to Helena Maleno Garzon, coordinator for the aid group Walking Borders, which is known as Caminando Fronteras in Spanish.

There has been no contact with the boats since their departures, she said.

“The most important thing is to find those people. There are many people missing in the sea. This isn’t normal. We need more planes to look for them,” Garzon told The Associated Press.

Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said Monday that its plane spotted a vessel approximately 80 miles from one of the Canary Islands that appeared to have the same characteristics as one of the boats reported missing.

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The vessel seen near the island of Gran Canaria appeared to be a multi-colored Senegalese pirogue, a kind of long canoe, carrying some 200 people. A rescue boat was launched but will take two hours to reach boat, the service said.

The Atlantic migration route is one of the deadliest in the world, with nearly 800 people dying or going missing in the first half of 2023, according to Walking Borders.

In recent years, the Canary Islands have become one of the main destinations for people trying to reach Spain, with a peak of more than 23,000 migrants arriving in 2020, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry. In the first six months of this year, more than 7,000 migrants and refugees reached the Canaries.

One of the deadliest mass drownings of Europe-bound migrants happened last month on the Mediterranean Sea, where more than 500 people were presumed dead off the coast of Greece. Criticism has mounted over the European Union’s yearslong failure to prevent such tragedies.

Boats that go missing often aren’t documented. Some are never found or are discovered across the world years later. An AP investigation published this year found that at least seven migrant boats from northwest Africa, likely trying to reach the Canary Islands in 2021, drifted to the Caribbean and Brazil.

The boats mainly travel from Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania, with fewer coming from Senegal, the Spanish aid group said. However, at least 19 boats from Senegal have arrived in the Canary Islands since June, the group said.

Factors such as ailing economies, a lack of jobs, extremist violence, political unrest and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats to reach the Canaries. Last month in Senegal, at least 23 people were killed during weeks of protests between opposition supporters and police.

A woman whose 19 and 24-year-old sons left on one of the boats from Mbour in June told the AP they had a goal of trying to pull the family out of poverty.

Daw Demba, 48, said she discovered her sons’ secret plans days before they left and tried to convince them not to. They assured her it would be safe because the captain had made the trip safely multiple times, she said.

“I am desperate to hear the voices of my sons. I am convinced they are still alive,” Demba said through tears in a phone interview from her home in Mbour. “Every moment, every second, I am still believing.”

Before they departed, she armed her sons, Massou Seck and Serigne Galaye Seck, with traditional spiritual items, including a bottle of water that had been blessed and Quranic paper with their names written on it for protection.

Walking Borders’ Maleno said she had been in contact with the Moroccan, Spanish and Mauritanian marines and that more needs to be done to look for the missing boats.

“Imagine if there (were) 300 American people missing at sea. What (would) happen? Many planes will look for them,” she said.