More than 100 migrants dead or missing off West Africa

A boat that left The Gambia drifted at sea for 25 days before rescuers reached it off Mauritania, leaving 143 bodies and 38 survivors aboard. The United Nations refugee agency said it was “extremely saddened” after 144 people were reported dead or missing in two maritime incidents off Mauritania between July 14 and July 18, and said 387 people were rescued.

The deaths and disappearances laid bare how the West African sea route continues to defeat deterrence efforts. Mauritania has become a major route for people from sub-Saharan Africa trying to reach Europe, and the crossings remain perilous because migrants keep boarding overcrowded, poorly equipped boats for long stretches across open water. The incidents off Mauritania showed that even repeated warnings have not slowed the flow.

The scale of the danger is not new. The International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project has tracked deaths and disappearances in migration since 2014, and its latest data said nearly 8,000 migrants died or disappeared globally in 2025. More than 4,000 of those deaths or disappearances happened while people were trying to reach Europe, and 1,166 were recorded on the West Africa-Atlantic Route in 2024.

That pattern has made Mauritania’s coast a graveyard as well as a transit point. One of the incidents involved a wooden fishing boat that capsized off the Mauritanian coast, underscoring how fragile the vessels are and how quickly a crossing can turn fatal. The numbers also show how migrants are still calculating that the chance of reaching Europe, however slim, is worth the risk of weeks at sea.

For governments in West Africa and Europe, the losses point to a stubborn policy failure. Patrols, rescue operations and anti-smuggling efforts have not stopped repeated departures, and the number of people rescued alongside the dead and missing suggests that search-and-rescue capacity is still being stretched by a route that remains active despite its toll. As long as people see no safer legal path, the crossings are likely to continue, and more families will be left waiting for names, bodies or any sign that their relatives made it ashore.