More than 140 people have died, missing in a refugee boat after leaving Mauritania | Immigration Issues

The UN said the boat carrying refugees and migrants from Africa traveled for 25 days before arriving at the port with deaths and people on board.

At least 143 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing in a boat off the coast of Mauritania trying to reach Europe, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says.

The agency said on Tuesday that it was “deeply saddened” by the death, which came despite three rescue missions in Mauritania between July 14 and 18 that pulled 387 people to safety from other boats that went missing.

The ship left Bafuloto in The Gambia and was rescued on July 18 after 25 days of sailing, carrying 38 bodies and survivors when it arrived at the port of Nouadhibou, UNHCR said.

“Among the people who survived… the ship were two children who lost all their family members during the journey, and they are recovering in hospital,” UNHCR spokesman Matt Saltmarsh told reporters in Geneva.

One person died in a train that went down in Mauritania on July 14.

The deceased were from sub-Saharan Africa, he said, without giving details of how they died.

Mauritania’s coast guard says the number is missing at 122, saying the boat ran out of fuel after leaving Gambia with 160 people on board.

The UNHCR called the passage to the Canary Islands “one of the most dangerous in the world”, referring to the long distances and overcrowded, impassable boats, and urged more training and employment opportunities to provide alternative routes.

Mauritania is the starting point of the Atlantic route, where tens of thousands trying to reach the Canary Islands, part of Spain, every year.

Arrivals fell mainly under a Damage supported by the European Unionwhere Mauritanian authorities have expelled thousands of asylum seekers and migrants and pushed for long, dangerous journeys from the coast.