By Lamin Njie
At least 70 Gambian youths who survived last Wednesday’s ‘back way’ boat accident are on their way home to reunite with their families, sources have told The Fatu Network.
A migrant boat carrying 195 passengers that launched from Barra last month sank off the coast of Mauritania on 4 December after it ran out of fuel. Thirteen women were onboard the boat out of which 11 died.
The International organisation for Migration in a statement on Friday said 78 Gambians that survived the shipwreck were receiving humanitarian aid.
A source told The Fatu Network on Saturday the survivors have been put on a bus and are travelling back to The Gambia. They will be received by a police taskforce that will later hand them to the Gambia Immigration Department, the source added.
Wednesday’s incident is the biggest ‘back way’ tragedy to have rocked the country in years.
On Saturday, President Adama Barrow addressed the nation announcing that a full police investigation has been launched to get to the bottom of this ‘serious national disaster’.
“The culprits will be prosecuted according to law,” the president said.
Thousands of Gambian youths leave The Gambia each year, making the country one of the most migrant producing countries in Africa. Most Gambian youths believe they cannot enjoy better lives in the country and as a result, they end up embarking on dangerous land and sea journeys to European countries like Spain, Italy and Malta.
The ‘back way’ journey to Spain was discovered in the mid-2000s when thousands of Gambian youths spend weeks in the sea just to reach Europe, a journey that is as deadly as the Libya one.
