At least 143 refugees and migrants are dead or missing from a single boat off the coast of Mauritania that was trying to reach Europe, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says.

The agency said on Tuesday that it was “extremely saddened” by the deaths, which came despite three rescue operations off Mauritania between July 14 and 18 that pulled 387 people to safety from other stranded boats.

The vessel had set off from Bafuloto in The Gambia and was rescued on July 18 after 25 days adrift, carrying bodies and 38 survivors when it reached the port of Nouadhibou, the UNHCR said.

“Among the survivors of… that ship were two children who have lost all their family members during the journey, and they are recovering in hospital,” UNHCR spokesperson Matt Saltmarsh told reporters in Geneva.

Another person died on another vessel that disembarked in Mauritania on July 14.

The dead were from sub-Saharan African countries, he said, without giving details of how they died.

Mauritania’s coastguard put the number missing at 122, saying the boat ran out of fuel after leaving The Gambia with 160 people on board.

The UNHCR called the route to the Canary Islands “one of the world’s deadliest”, citing long distances and overcrowded, unseaworthy boats, and urged more access to education and jobs to offer alternatives to the crossings.

Mauritania is a major departure point on the Atlantic route, where tens of thousands attempt to reach the Canary Islands, part of Spain, each year.

Arrivals have fallen sharply under a European Union-funded crackdown, in which Mauritanian authorities have deported thousands of asylum seekers and migrants and pushed departures to longer, deadlier journeys from further down the coast. (Al Jazeera)

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