Fifty people are feared to have drowned when a migrant boat capsized off the coast of Morocco earlier in the week. A Spanish human rights organization, Walking Borders, has alerted that the migrants died on their way from Mauritania to the Canary Islands. The journey is said to have begun on January 2.
Of the 50 presumed fatalities, 44 are said to have been Pakistanis. Almost all are said to have been from cities in the Punjab province in eastern Pakistan. According to information provided to Pakistan's embassy in Morocco, a total of 80 people were on board the capsized boat.
The route from northern West Africa to the Canary Islands has become the main route for migrants who want to reach Europe. According to the EU's border agency Frontex, over 50,000 migrants took that route in 2024.
