At least 34 people have lost their lives near Lompul beach, in the Senegalese department of Kébémer, in the Louga region, in the north of the country, after a boat carrying migrants became stranded off the coast, according to what the state news agency APS has reported.
The Governor of Louga, Ndèye Nguénar Mbodj, has traveled this Sunday to the area to oversee on the ground the tasks of identification and preservation of the bodies recovered.
In an official statement, the Minister of the Interior and Public Security, Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé, has expressed his "profound shock and sadness" and conveyed the condolences of the President of the Republic and of the Government to the families of the victims.
The Executive has also reiterated its determination to strengthen the fight against networks dedicated to human trafficking, as well as to intensify cooperation with neighboring countries to curb this type of activity.
According to the first available information, the bodies were found by local authorities on the shore, in the area of Tébène, where a survivor of the shipwreck was also located alive.
Members of the Army and the Fire Department have been deployed in the area to organize rescue operations and the transfer of the remains to forensic facilities, in order to proceed with the identification of the deceased.
For now, the authorities have been unable to establish the exact causes of the accident or the total number of people traveling aboard the boat, although the first investigations indicate that the incident adds to the chain of tragedies recorded on the routes of irregular migration by sea along Senegal's Atlantic coast.