DAKAR, Senegal — At least 21 people died after a boat carrying migrants sank off Senegal’s coast, the country’s Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said in a post on X that as of Saturday evening one person had been found alive, and that teams had been mobilized to continue searching for any more possible survivors. It did not specify how many people were believed to have been on board.
The ministry said the boat sank off the coast of the town of Kébémer, north of Dakar. Senegal’s interior minister will visit the site Monday, it said.
The Atlantic migration route from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. At least 635 people died in the first five months of 2026, according to the Spanish rights group Walking Borders.
The group said that for every 100 migrants who made it to the Canary Islands in that period, about 21 died.
In July, the United Nations refugee agency said nearly 150 people died or went missing within the space of one week from boats that sank off Mauritania as they were trying to make their way to Europe, while almost 400 people were rescued.
Last New Year’s Eve, a boat carrying more than 200 migrants sank off the coast of Gambia. Red Cross officials reported that 44 bodies were recovered.
Brennan writes for the Associated Press.
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