04-07-2023 13:40 - Mauritania / Two canoes run aground in Nouadhibou: One dead, arrests and untraceable migrants

 

Leral.net - For some time now, candidates for emigration have been heading back to sea in the direction of Europe. Last week, two canoes from Senegal ran aground on the Mauritanian coast. The tally shows one death, 48 arrests, 104 people already deported and 102 migrants missing in town or at sea

. two canoes heading for the European coasts. A canoe with 105 people on board and another carrying 150 candidates ran aground in Nouadhibou, a town 465 km from Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital.

According to the survivors, a lack of fuel forced them to land on the evening of Friday June 30, 2023, on the Mauritanian coast, in search of gasoline. They were quickly intercepted by the Mauritanian coast guard and soldiers patrolling the area.

After their arrest, one person was found dead out of 105 candidates present in the first canoe. The others were taken to the police station, then taken back to the Rosso border.

Regarding the second canoe, only 48 candidates, out of the 150, were arrested and placed in custody at the main police station in Nouadhibou. It is reported that four of them, visibly exhausted by the trip, are interned in the regional hospital of this city.

Contacted by us, Baye Loum, president of the Senegalese Association of Nouadhibou, indicated that "nobody knows if the 102 candidates (from the second canoe, editor's note) disappeared, are in the city or have remained at sea". '.

However, it is confirmed that these two canoes had on board Gambians and Senegalese in majority, who would have left Djiffer, a locality located in the town of Fatick. Baye Loum challenges the competent Senegalese authorities and asks them to take appropriate measures to avoid these tragedies at sea.

According to him, every day, a canoe fails, for lack of fuel or due to a technical engine failure. Risks to which these candidates for emigration expose themselves, in an extremely difficult and severe climatic context.

A week ago, a boat with 142 people on board, coming from Mbour, was intercepted. A 12-year-old boy was part of the trip and maintained that his project in Europe was to join a football club.

The honorary consulate of Senegal in Nouadhibou at the bedside of the sick

Informed, the honorary consul Abass Boughourbal went to the scene, to the police station and to the hospital, to inquire about the situation. He also spoke with the competent Mauritanian authorities and instructed members of the community and the consulate to make the necessary arrangements at the bedside of the sick and to ensure food for those arrested, before their deportation to the border.

For the lifeless body, it is deposited in the morgue of the hospital, where it is the object of identification to find its parents. According to our sources in Nouadhibou, this person is of Gambian nationality.

In Nouakchott, where the survivors transit before their arrival at the Rosso border, it is Ambassador Moustapha Ndour and the President of FAGSEM (Federation of Senegalese Associations and Groups of Mauritania) Assane Guèye, to take over to ensure their food support.

According to several observers, this resurgence of makeshift boats heading for Europe brings back bad memories of the years 2005 and 2006, when sea waves drove back the lifeless bodies of candidates for immigration on a daily basis.

It remains to be seen how these makeshift boats leave the Senegalese coast. In other words, flaws in maritime surveillance are noted on the Senegalese side.

Investigation