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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnB2012's Avatar
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    40 migrants drown off Africa

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/03 ... index.html

    NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (Reuters) -- More than 40 African migrants heading for Spain's Canary Islands drowned at the weekend when their boats sank off the West African coast, Mauritania's Red Crescent organization said on Monday.

    More than 40 other migrants were rescued in the incidents, which took place in waters north of the Mauritanian coastal city of Nouadhibou, off the coasts of Western Sahara and Morocco, a Red Crescent spokesman said.

    "There were two shipwrecks from Saturday to Sunday," Ahmedou Ould Haye told Reuters, speaking by telephone from Nouadhibou, Mauritania's second city and biggest port.

    Most of the Africans involved in the two incidents -- the latest in a series of maritime tragedies involving migrants from the world's poorest continent trying to reach Europe -- came from Mali, Guinea Bissau and Gambia. Others came from Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Mauritania.

    Haye said an Italian ship was looking on Monday for another vessel carrying migrants which had put out a distress signal in Mauritanian waters, but there were no details of how many were on board.

    In one of the weekend incidents, an open boat carrying 43 people broke in two and sank after colliding in rough seas with a Moroccan vessel which had come to its assistance, Haye said.

    Twenty-three drowned and the 20 survivors were brought to Nouadhibou, at the extreme north of Mauritania's Atlantic coast.

    The survivors were being looked after at Nouadhibou police station by the Red Crescent.

    In the second incident, another open boat carrying 45 migrants capsized and 22 drowned. Mauritanian authorities rescued the survivors.

    Driven by poverty and dreams of a better life in Europe and elsewhere, thousands of Africans leave their homelands every year on hazardous clandestine journeys by land and sea. But hundreds drown or die in the attempt.

    In the sea routes, migrants leave Senegal or Mauritania packed aboard rickety, open boats trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, seen as a gateway to Europe.

    The European Union has warned immigration is a "time bomb," and some officials want a joint Mediterranean security force of marine guards and police officers to combat human trafficking.

    Migration has become an even more sensitive issue since a wave of African migrants tried to force their way in September into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on Africa's northern coast. At least 11 were killed.

  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnB2012's Avatar
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    Driven by poverty and dreams of a better life in Europe and elsewhere, thousands of Africans leave their homelands every year on hazardous clandestine journeys by land and sea. But hundreds drown or die in the attempt.
    Does this sound familiar?

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