Up to 132 African would-be immigrants were on Thursday feared to have drowned when their boat capsized off Mauritania en route to Spain’s Canary Islands, Spanish news reports said.
Eighty-four bodies were retrieved from the sea and beaches near the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott between Sunday and Wednesday.
Some of the 18 survivors reportedly said the boat had carried 150 people, which would leave 48 migrants missing.
The daily El Pais quoted Spanish officials in Mauritania as confirming the shipwreck, the worst to date involving migrants heading for the Canaries.
The sea kept throwing up new bodies while the first 15 were being buried in the presence of diplomats from Gambia and Senegal, where most of the victims were from.
The boat was believed to have embarked a few days earlier from Senegal, possibly from a place near the Gambian border. It suffered engine failure, ran out of food, and several of the passengers died of hunger and dehydration.
The boat then capsized, leaving the surviving occupants at the mercy of the sea.
The shipwreck increased the number of drowned migrants to 574 this year on the basis of a figure given by Canaries officials, who said earlier that 490 bodies had been retrieved from the sea off the islands and West Africa.
Official Spanish figures, however, would put the number of victims at 262 including the recent shipwreck. Non-governmental organisations say thousands may have drowned.
More migrants meanwhile continued arriving in Spain, with about 140 people landing on Tenerife, Lanzarote and the mainland near Granada. They included at least 50 Moroccans, 24 of whom were younger than 18 years old.
The Canary Islands have received about 19 000 Africans this year, up from nearly 4 800 during all of 2005. – Sapa-DPA