Deadly West Atlantic shipwreck highlights victims’ desperation, says UN refugee agency

News of another deadly shipwreck off the coast of Mauritania is a clear indication of the desperation people face as they attempt to escape strife, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday.

The UN agency’s comments follow reports that dozens of people are missing after a boat carrying hundreds of people capsized in the waters off the coast of the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Monday. At least 15 are confirmed dead.

Recent months have continued to see a surge in the number of people setting out from North and West African countries, including Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco. Their final destination is often the Canary Islands.

Here’s UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo:

“We do see a phenomena of these movements being taken by people who are extremely vulnerable, they're desperate, their desperation and vulnerability sometimes exploited by smugglers, by traffickers, by others. So, there are a variety of modalities that are resorted to, but really it speaks to the desperation in people resorting to these journeys because there are simply what they perceive to be no safer pathways.”

Earlier reports said that approximately 300 people including women and children boarded a wooden “pirogue” boat in The Gambia and spent seven days at sea before capsizing.

Ms. Mantoo noted that this was the second deadly shipwreck in the region reported this month, after one at the start of July.

The so-called “West Atlantic route” off the coast of West Africa has become one of the deadliest in the world, “with thousands of migrants and refugees drowning in recent years”, the UNHCR official said.

Since June last year, more than 76 boats with approximately 6,130 survivors have disembarked in Mauritania, while around 190 people perished at sea before the two latest tragedies.

UN agencies boost response to Ethiopia’s devastating landslides

To Ethiopia now, where the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, has deployed rapid assessment teams following devastating landslides in the south.

The tragedy was triggered by heavy rainfall and it has claimed at least 257 lives so far, authorities say.

Search and rescue operations are ongoing, led locally with support from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society and volunteers.

UN agencies and non-governmental partners are also on the ground, providing much-needed assistance, said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke:

“Rescuers were mainly digging through mounds of mud with their bare hands and spades. UN agencies and our non-governmental partners are on the scene and we are dispatching assistance including food, nutrition, health and other critical supplies.”

Among the other UN agencies providing support, the World Food Programme (WFP) has dispatched additional food supplies, including cereals, pulses, and vegetable oil, enough to support 14,500 people for two months.

And the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has already sent water and sanitation supplies, including 17,000 bars of laundry soap, 96,000 water treatment strips, 1,000 plastic sheets and 17,000 jerry cans.

WHO to send 1 million polio vaccines to Gaza to protect children

Finally to Gaza, where more than a million polio vaccines are on their way after the discovery of the highly infectious disease in sewage samples.

In an announcement on Friday, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that the vaccines will be administered to children in coming weeks.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that no cases of polio have been recorded yet but without immediate action, it was “just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected.”

Humanitarians have expressed deep concerns continue about the impact of a possible polio outbreak in Gaza, amid disastrous sanitary conditions and a lack of access to healthcare, because of the war.

Earlier this week, Dr. Ayadil Saparbekov, Team Lead for Health Emergencies at WHO in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, warned that the spread of polio and other communicable diseases could lead to more people dying of preventable illness than from war-related injuries – currently 39,000, according to the local health authorities.

On 16 July, the WHO said that vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected last month from Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah – two Gaza cities left in ruins by nearly 10 months of intense Israeli bombardment.

WHO explained that polio virus can emerge in areas where poor vaccination coverage allows the weakened form of the orally taken vaccine virus strain to mutate into a stronger version.