15 dead after boat carrying migrants sinks in Mauritania

International Desk: At least 15 people have died in a boat sinking incident in the North West African country of Mauritania. Besides, more than one and a half hundred people have gone missing.

The accident happened near Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. There were 300 passengers on the boat at the time of the accident. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has confirmed this information. Al Jazeera news.

In a statement, the IOM said approximately 300 passengers embarked on the boat from Gambia. After sailing on that boat for seven days, it sank near Nauyakchot on July 22. The Mauritanian coast guard said that 120 people were rescued alive after the accident. Rescuers are working to rescue the missing.

The IOM said 10 of the people rescued alive were admitted to hospital for emergency treatment. A fish trader named Iba Sar of Nouakchott said that the dead bodies were washed near the coast due to the strong storm of the last two days.

He said that he saw about 30 dead bodies being recovered from the beach.  Iba Sar told Reuters news agency that the rest of the bodies will be recovered within the next two days.

The IOM says that between January 1 and July 15, more than 19,700 people reached the Canary Islands using the Atlantic route. This number is 160 percent more than last year. In the first five months of this year, nearly 5,000 people died at sea trying to reach the Spanish islands.