No fewer than seven souls have perished and many others are missing in the wake of a craft ferrying approximately two hundred migrants seeking to enter the European continent sank near the shoreline of the Gambian coast, reports confirm.
The boat overturned on Wednesday midnight in the vicinity of Jinack village in the North Bank Region and it was afterwards located "beached on a shoal", the nation's defense ministry announced officially.
96 individuals were pulled to safety and a hunt is ongoing for those still missing who were on board the sunken boat that was en route to the Spanish Canary Islands.
The dangerous voyage over the the Atlantic has emerged as a rising pathway for African asylum seekers attempting to get to European nations.
Close to 47,000 individuals arrived at the Spanish archipelago in last year and figures suggest over 9,000 migrants have lost their lives during the journey.
Search and Rescue Efforts
In the aftermath of the disaster, The Gambian Navy began a search operation, involving a number of military boats and a fishing boat that came to assist, the defense officials said.
Authorities say a number of those who died are foreign nationals and that their details are still being checked.
The bodies of the seven individuals who died were found, and 10 of those rescued are said to be in grave health and receiving urgent medical care.
A Frequent Pathway
The Gambia is one of the routes taken by migrants seeking to get to the EU, frequently via perilous trips across ocean and terrain.
Over the past few years, the European Union has established pacts with several North African nations designed to limiting undocumented migration.
