Migrant deaths: Eleven bodies found in boat on Caribbean island
The bodies of 11 people believed to have been migrants have been found inside a boat washed onto the shores of the Caribbean island of Canouan, which forms part of St Vincent and the Grenadines.The identities of those on board remain unclear, a police official said, but several passports found at the scene suggest they were from Mali, a land-locked country in western Africa more than 6,000km (3,800 miles) away.The boat, measuring 45ft (14m) in length, 12ft in width and 6ft in depth, was found grounded in Little Bay, on Monday.The discovery comes just months after a boat with 13 dead bodies - some of whom also had Malian documents - was found washed ashore in St Kitts and Nevis.
Authorities in St Vincent and the Grenadines said they were alerted to the boat with the 11 deceased migrants on Monday.Eujin Byun, UN Refugee Agency's global spokesperson, told the BBC the migrants - believed to be from Mali - had probably planned to go to the Canary Islands.Given the small size of the boat recovered in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ms Byun said it was "highly unlikely" those on board would have been attempting reach the Caribbean.She added: "We cannot talk on behalf of those who have passed away, but our best guess is that they wanted to take the Atlantic route to get to the Canary Islands"
Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced inside Mali, whose central and northern regions have known little stability since independence from France in September 1960, and many others have fled abroad. Around 6.4 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the European Commission, and more than 1.5 million people require emergency food assistance.Ms Buyn explained that Mali had experienced "a cycle of violence" since 2012, when the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali triggered a military coup and Islamist groups that helped defeat the government captured several towns. Access to services in the west African country had been "severely restricted" and Malians were crossing the border in search for better livelihoods, she added.But when refugees cross the border to neighbouring countries in the Sahel region, they are often confronted with a similar landscape, Ms Byun said, which leads them to seek refuge further afield."Desperate people make desperate decisions," she concluded.The UN official worries that the Atlantic route from Africa to Europe is not getting as much attention as the Mediterranean route, and "smugglers are taking advantage of this".
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