By: Malanding Darboe & Kumba Faal
More than 150 Gambians could not be accounted for 10 days after embarking on a Europe-bound migrant boat in Barra, reports intimated.
According to reports, over 150 Gambians, including women and children, boarded the boat on 26th July at around 3 am.
Their loved ones and the Gambian authorities were unable to give details of their whereabouts several days after they left Barra.
This latest episode in the Gambia’s irregular migration problemserves as a poignant reminder of the 2019 boating tragedy off the coast of Mauritania, which involved a boat that set sail from Barra.
More than 60 people were feared dead in the boating disaster that would later serve as a harbinger of similar tragic boating accidents, involving Gambians, trying to escape poverty.