Too often migrants disappear without a trace and witnesses
The voyage from the struggling Senegalese fishing town of Fass Boye to Spain’s Canary Islands, a gateway to the European Union where they hoped to find work, was supposed to take a week.
But the wooden boat carrying 101 men and boys was getting blown further and further away from its destination.
No land was in sight. Yet four men believed — or hallucinated — they could swim to shore. They picked up empty water containers and wooden planks — anything to help them float. And one by one, they leapt.
Dozens more would do the same before disappearing into the ocean. The migrants still in the boat watched as their brothers faded. Those who died onboard were tossed into the ocean until the survivors had no energy left and bodies began accumulating.
On day 36, a Spanish fishing vessel spotted them. It was Aug. 14 and they were 290 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of Cape Verde, the last cluster of islands in the eastern central Atlantic Ocean before the vast nothingness that separates West Africa from the Caribbean.
For 38 men and boys, it was salvation. For the other 63, it was too late.
eh, it doesnt really surprise me that much. some cargo vessels have a lot of amenities but the vast majority do not and absorbing 40+ people, all of which are unvetted/a security risk? they’re not equipped to handle that.
yes, it’s a commercial problem, as you point out - however it’s appalling to leave people completely without assistance if they are in obvious peril at sea. Rendering assistance need not obligate them to bring them aboard - but some basic humanity would dictate to not just abandon them to die. But of course there is stuff to deliver and schedules to meet - business is business…