Moroccan navy rescues 189 migrants and recovers five bodies after boat capsizes

Much of the North African coast has become a major gateway for migrants hoping to reach Europe

Migrant deaths have surged in recent years as thousands flee war or crushing poverty, seeking to cross the Mediterranean in the hopes of finding better lives in Europe. AFP

The bodies of five Senegalese migrants have been recovered by the Moroccan navy and 189 others have been rescued after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara, official media reported on Monday.

Morocco's official news agency Map quoted a military official who reported that 11 other migrants were in a critical condition and had been taken to Hassan II Hospital in the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara.

The rescued migrants were taken to Dakhla on Sunday and handed over to Moroccan authorities, according to the source.

Their boat capsized Saturday off Guerguerat, a village in the south of Western Sahara close to the border with Mauritania, the unidentified official said.

It is believed they were trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands.

Meanwhile, 16 migrants died in shipwrecks off the coasts of Tunisia and Western Sahara, officials said Monday.

At least 11 migrants died in a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia's second city of Sfax, said local court spokesman Faouzi Masmoudi, revising an earlier toll of four fatalities.

Another 44 are missing while two others were rescued from the boat that had 57 people on board, all of them from sub-Saharan African countries, Mr Masmoudi added.

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Survivors of the sinking, near Tunisia's Kerkennah Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, said the makeshift boat had departed at the weekend from a beach north of the coastal city of Sfax.

Mr Masmoudi told AFP that coastguard units were searching for more survivors.

The distance between Sfax and Italy's Lampedusa island is only about 130 kilometres.

Migrant deaths have surged in recent years as thousands flee war or crushing poverty, seeking to cross the Mediterranean in the hopes of finding better lives in Europe.

Much of the North African coast has become a major gateway for migrants and asylum seekers primarily from other parts of the continent, attempting perilous voyages in often rickety boats.

The central Mediterranean migrant crossing from North Africa to Europe is the world's deadliest, with more than 20,000 fatalities since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

About 90,000 migrants have arrived in Italy this year, according to the UN refugee agency, with most of them having embarked from Tunisia or neighbouring Libya.

Crossing attempts multiplied in March and April following a incendiary speech by Tunisian President Kais Saied, who had alleged that “hordes” of sub-Saharan migrants were causing crime and posing a demographic threat to the mainly Arab country.

Xenophobic attacks against black African migrants and students have increased across the country since Mr Saied's February remarks, and many migrants have lost jobs and housing.

Since early July, hundreds of migrants have been driven out of Sfax after a Tunisian man's death in an altercation with migrants.

In the following days, Tunisian police took migrants to the desert and other inhospitable areas near the Libyan and Algerian borders, rights groups and international organisations said.

Humanitarian sources have put their number at more than 2,000, with at least 25 reported deaths of migrants abandoned in the Tunisian-Libyan border area since last month.