Senegalese authorities announced on Sunday that a boat carrying more than 120 migrants was intercepted in Atlantic waters. The migrants, whose journey had reportedly originated in The Gambia were hoping to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.
The Senegalese Navy said in a statement on X that the interception took place about 110 kilometers from the coast Dakar on 12th October.
The migrants were taken to the Admiral Faye Gassama Naval Base, also situated in Dakar, where they were handed over to authorities for processing.
The majority of irregular journeys to the Canaries depart from Mauritania, which in recent years has overtaken Morocco and the Western Sahara as the main launch point.
Lately, however, the number of boats departing from The Gambia in particular appears to have been rising.
Senegal has emerged as one of Spain’s key partners, after Mauritania, to help stem the influx of migrants heading to the Atlantic archipelago – in exchange for cash injections by Madrid.
According to Europa Press, Senegalese authorities intercepted over 7,000 migrants attempting to reach the Canaries last year alone.
Earlier this year, the Senegalese Coast Guard stated that it had already crossed the mark of apprehending over 3,000 individuals attempting the dangerous crossing.
Meanwhile, a dinghy carrying around 230 migrants, including 13 women and six underage minors, succeeded in reaching the Canaries on October 14, according to reports by the Spanish news agency EFE.
The boat reached the port of La Restinga on the small island of El Hierro after reportedly traveling for eight days in the open sea.
It is believed that the migrants had departed from The Gambia, and that the group included Gambian, Senegalese, Malian and Guinean nationals.
According to the International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, at least 2,055 people have died or gone missing while attempting to reach Europe since 2014 on this route; the Spanish migrant NGO Caminando Fronteras however estimates that more than 10,500 people died or disappeared on the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands in 2024 alone.
Last year, close to 47,000 people succeeded in reaching the archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, according to numbers provided by the Spanish Interior Ministry, though closer cooperation with African partners has meant that those numbers have been declining:
In the first half of 2025, about 11,300 people managed to reach the Canary Islands by small boat journeys — roughly 40 percent less than the same period in 2024.
