12 killed in migrant boat capsize off Senegal's coast

Dakar, Dec 24 12 bodies were recovered early Wednesday off the coast of Joal-Fadiouth in the Mbour department, western Senegal, following the capsizing of a pirogue carrying migrants, according to the Senegalese Press Agency (APS).

The death toll remains provisional, with 35 survivors having been handed over to the local gendarmerie brigade for the ongoing investigation into the accident, the APS reported, citing security sources.

The total number of passengers aboard the vessel has not yet been determined, nor have the causes of the capsizing, which occurred at around 5:00 a.m. local time, the agency said, Xinhua News Agency reported.

On December 2, one person died after a small fishing vessel capsized near a port in the city of Kesennuma, Japan's Miyagi Prefecture.

According to local media, at around 8:20 am local time, police received an emergency call reporting that "a fishing boat has capsized and someone appears to have drowned" near the Akaushi fishing port in Kesennuma. Rescue teams rushed to the scene and pulled a man in his 70s from the water, but he was pronounced dead about 40 minutes after being transported to a hospital.

The Kesennuma Coast Guard said the accident involved a 0.6-ton fishing vessel carrying two men. The other man on board was not seriously injured. The incident occurred in coastal waters about 100 meters southwest of the Akaushi fishing port, where weather conditions were poor and waves were high at the time.

The Kesennuma Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the accident.

Earlier in November, at least four people were killed when two boats carrying 95 migrants capsized off the coast of the western Libyan city of Al Khums, the Libyan Red Crescent said.

In a statement posted on its official Facebook page, the Red Crescent said that the two incidents occurred on November 13.

It added that the first boat was carrying 26 migrants of Bangladeshi nationality, four of whom died after the vessel sank. The second boat was carrying 69 illegal migrants, including two Egyptians and 67 Sudanese, among them eight children.

The Red Crescent noted that its emergency team, in cooperation with the coast guard and port security authority, carried out rescue operations, recovered the bodies, and handled the cases according to established procedures.

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