A minimum of seven souls have perished and many others remain unaccounted for after a craft transporting about two hundred people seeking to enter Europe overturned off the coast of the Gambian coast, officials state.
The craft flipped in the early hours of Thursday near the village of Jinack in the North Bank Region and it was subsequently discovered "stranded on a sandbar", the country's defence ministry said in a statement.
96 individuals have been saved to date and a search is continuing for the remaining passengers who were traveling on the shipwrecked vessel that was bound for Spain's Canary Islands.
The perilous journey over the Atlantic has grown into a more frequent path for migrants from Africa attempting to get to European nations.
Nearly 47,000 individuals arrived at the Spanish archipelago in last year and estimates more than 9,000 people have lost their lives trying.
Search and Rescue Efforts
Following the Wednesday incident, The Gambian Navy launched a search-and-rescue operation, involving several naval vessels and a fishing boat that joined the effort, the defense officials said.
Authorities say a number of those who died are foreign nationals and that their identities are still being verified.
The remains of the seven individuals who drowned have been retrieved, and a dozen of the saved are described as being in grave health and receiving urgent medical care.
A Common Migration Route
Gambia is a frequent corridor utilized by migrants attempting to enter the EU, often on perilous trips across ocean and terrain.
Over the past few years, the European bloc has reached agreements with several North African countries aimed at curtailing irregular migration.
