Senegalese police intercepted 142 migrants off the coast of Dakar, including women and children, who were trying to reach Spain in a pyroga, in an operation carried out on Friday, today announced that security force.
© Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu via Getty Images
07/11/2026
by
Lusa
A senegalese police intercepted 142 migrants off of Dakar, including women and children, who were trying to reach Spain in a pyroga, in an operation carried out on Friday, today announced that security force.
Among the people intercepted are 40 Senegalese, including four women, 93 Gambians, of which 17 women, a citizen of Guinea-Bissau, two from Guinea-Conakry and two Nigerians, according to a police statement quoted by France-Presse (AFP).
The same source adds that the group also included two babies and two children, indicating that the operation took place on the margins of the security device of the Dakar Youth Olympics, the first Olympic event held on African soil.
Thousands of people, especially young people from West Africa, have been trying for several years to sneak into Europe via the Atlantic route, mainly to the Spanish Canary Islands, on overcrowded and often degraded vessels.
As a result, thousands of people have died or disappeared in recent years during these crossings.
At the end of October, the non-governmental organization Action for Human Rights and Friendship (ADHA) warned of the persistence of “dangerous departures” of migrants towards Europe, referring that about 1,000 people from West Africa arrived in the Canary Islands on 22 and 23 October.
The recent strengthening of maritime surveillance by Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco has moved the departures of pyrogas to the Canary Islands further south, to the coasts of Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry, increasing the duration of crossings and associated risks.