SW News: More than 60 migrants are feared dead after a Spanish fishing boat rescued a boat off the Atlantic archipelago of Cape Verde that initially had more than 100 people aboard.

The International Organization for Migration reported that seven bodies were discovered aboard the boat and that 56 people are thought to be missing at sea and dead. As many as 38 people were reportedly saved earlier this week near Cape Verde, which is located approximately 385 miles off the coast of West Africa, according to Senegal's foreign affairs ministry.

Even though the journey from West Africa to Spain is among the most hazardous in the world, the number of migrants sailing from Senegal on flimsy wooden boats has increased over the past 12 months. The boats attempt to travel to Spain's Canary Islands, a group of islands off the coast of northwest Africa that have served as a bridge to continental Europe.

Nearly 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, Walking Borders said. Unemployment, political unrest, violence, and climate change are some of the reasons that push migrants across West Africa to risk their lives on overcrowded boats. Spanish Interior Ministry said about 10,000 people have reached the Canary Islands by sea from the northwest coast of Africa so far this year.

As many as 189 people were saved by the Moroccan navy on August 7 after a boat carrying Senegalese migrants sank off the coast of Western Sahara. Five bodies of the migrants were also found.

At least seven migrant boats from northwest Africa were discovered in the Caribbean and even off Brazil in 2021 after becoming lost in the Atlantic and being found drifting with just dead bodies on board.