Seven bodies were recovered and 96 people rescued after a boat potentially carrying more than 200 migrants capsized overnight in northwest Gambia, the country’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday (January 1, 2026), adding search and recovery operations were continuing.
It was the latest deadly incident along one of the world’s most dangerous migrant routes frequented mostly by West Africans trying to reach Spain via the Canary Islands.
The boat was reported to have capsized around midnight in the vicinity of a village in Gambia’s North Bank region, and it was later found “grounded on a sandbank,” the Defence Ministry said in the statement.
The subsequent rescue mission involved three naval speedboats, a coastal patrol vessel and “a local fishing canoe” whose operators volunteered to help, the statement said.
Ten of the rescued migrants were in critical condition and receiving urgent medical attention, it said, without giving their nationalities.
