Tuesday July 21, 2026
Illustrative: People gather around a boat carrying newly-arrived Rohingya refugees, after authorities prevented the refugees from disembarking and ordered them to remain on board the vessel, at Leuge Beach in Indonesia’s Aceh province on January 29, 2025.(photo credit: CEK MAD/AFP via Getty Images)
A desperate attempt to reach Europe has left 144 people dead or missing off Mauritania’s coast, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, following three rescue operations over a five-day period.
The deaths were reported after rescues carried out in Mauritania from July 14 to July 18. UNHCR renewed its call for broader access to education and employment, saying such opportunities could offer alternatives to perilous sea journeys.
One vessel accounted for 143 deaths. The boat departed Bufaloto, Gambia, and was rescued on July 18 after spending 25 days adrift at sea.
It arrived carrying bodies as well as 38 survivors, UNHCR said. Agency staff were present in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, when those aboard disembarked and provided assistance.
“Among the survivors of all that ship were two children who have lost all their family members during the journey and they are recovering in hospital,” spokesperson Matt Saltmarsh told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.
Saltmarsh said he did not immediately have information on whether the victims drowned or died from hunger, thirst or another cause.
Those who died were from sub-Saharan African countries, he said, without providing further details.
UNHCR also reported that one person was dead on arrival aboard another vessel that came ashore in Mauritania on July 14.
Across the three rescue operations conducted between July 14 and July 18, 387 people survived, the agency said.
Since the start of 2026, authorities have recorded 17 disembarkations in Nouadhibou and Nouakchott, Mauritania, rescuing a total of 2,147 people.
Sea arrivals of migrants and refugees in Europe along the main routes have fallen by more than one-third this year. U.N. data showed just over 40,000 arrivals, compared with 65,407 during the first half of 2025.
But deaths and disappearances at sea remain at “alarming levels”, UNHCR said.
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Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Susan Fenton
