More than 60 dead as packed migrant boat carrying children as young as 12 capsizes off Cape Verde while heading to Spain

AT least 60 migrants are feared dead after a boat headed for Spain capsized. The vessel set off from Senegal, West Africa, more than a month ago with more than 100 people on board – including kids as young as 12. GettyThe boat had more than 100 people on board when it capsized off Cape Verde[/caption] Senegal’s foreign affairs ministry said the boat was rescued on Tuesday with 38 survivors and several dead on board 385 miles off the coast of the Atlantic Island of Cape Verde. The Spanish migration advocacy group Walking Borders said the vessel was a large fishing boat, called a pirogue, which had left Senegal on July 10 with more than 100 migrants on board. Families in the town of Fass Boye had reached out to Walking Borders after 10 days without hearing from loved ones on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzn said. Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the local fishermen’s association, said he has two nephews among the missing. They wanted to go to Spain, Boye said. The route from West Africa to Spain is one of the world’s most dangerous, yet the number of migrants leaving from Senegal on rickety wooden boats has surged over the past year. Almost 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, Walking Borders says.