Senegal says 21 dead after migrant boat goes down off Lompoul
The Interior Ministry's provisional count gives one survivor, with rescue teams still searching and the boat's departure point and passenger number unknown.
Senegal's Interior Ministry has counted 21 bodies and one survivor after a boat carrying migrants went down off the country's northwestern coast near Lompoul. The figure, reported on Saturday 7 November, is provisional. Rescue services were still searching the water and shoreline for missing people, The Rio Times reported, citing the ministry and local officials.
Lompoul lies on the Atlantic shore between Dakar, the capital, and the northern port city of Saint-Louis, in the Kebemer department of the Louga region. The bodies were taken to the Kebemer health district, the local public health service. Identification of the dead was still pending.
The reports differ on what happened to the boat. Reuters and Channel Africa said a migrant boat sank. The Rio Times said officials described a presumed shipwreck, and that local accounts differed on whether a pirogue ran aground off the coast or went down offshore. A pirogue is a wooden boat built for coastal fishing, the kind commonly used for these crossings.
Four bodies of presumed migrants were found on Friday 6 November at Tebene 2, a village in the commune of Thieppe, according to The Rio Times. The toll rose sharply the following day, when about 20 bodies were found near Lompoul, the outlet reported.
Officials have not said where the boat left from, how many people were on board, or where it was bound. Boats leaving this stretch of coast usually head for Spain's Canary Islands, an archipelago in the Atlantic off Morocco. The Rio Times described the passage as one of the most dangerous migration routes.
The Rio Times also reported that local accounts said several survivors fled after the boat came ashore, and that most of the dead came from the neighbouring communes of Leona and Thieppe. Senegal's authorities have not confirmed either detail. Punch reported that the sinking was the latest in a run of tragedies on the Atlantic route from West Africa toward Europe.
Senegal's government has not announced any change to conditions along the coast, and the count may rise as the search continues.
How the reports differ
Reuters and Channel Africa carried the toll of 21 dead with little beyond it, Reuters attributing the figure to the government. Punch attributed it to authorities and placed the sinking off northwestern Senegal. The Rio Times carried the Interior Ministry's fuller provisional count of 21 bodies and one survivor, named Lompoul and the Kebemer health district, and reported that local accounts disagreed on whether the pirogue ran aground or sank offshore, with the cause described only as a presumed shipwreck. Only The Rio Times reported the four bodies found the previous day at Tebene 2, and only it reported local claims that several survivors fled and that most of the dead came from Leona and Thieppe.
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