A Spanish hospital ship carrying a group of exhausted African
migrants rescued from a sinking pirogue off the coast of West
Africa docked in Dakar yesterday.

The migrants, including four women, disembarked from the MS
Esperanza del Mar and were taken care of by members of the
Senegalese Red Cross. IOM staff present at the port confirmed that
13 migrants suffering from hypothermia, dehydration and broken
limbs were taken to a local hospital for treatment. Several had
their fingers amputated because of prolonged exposure to cold
temperatures at sea. The bodies of two migrants were also taken
ashore.

Working with Senegalese authorities, IOM is providing shelter,
food and counselling for the remaining 76 migrants, mostly
Senegalese nationals but also including English speakers from the
region. 

"IOM will do its best to provide the migrants with humanitarian
assistance and stands ready to help those who wish to return home
in dignity," says IOM's deputy chief of mission in Dakar, Laurent
De Boeck.

The migrants were saved last Tuesday by a Spanish fishing boat
some 90 kilometres off the coast of Mauritania before being
transferred onto the MS Esperanza del Mar. Survivors told rescuers
that the bodies of 11 migrants who had died during the long journey
had been thrown overboard.

More than 31,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Africa but
also increasingly from South Asia arrived last year in the Spanish
Canary Islands after making long, risky voyages in open wooden
pirogues from the West African coast.

In a bid to help the many migrants left stranded in desperate
conditions in West Africa, IOM has been providing emergency and
return assistance to numerous groups of Africans and South Asian
migrants.

However, lack of adequate funding for humanitarian operations in
neighbouring Guinea Conakry means IOM will have to suspend its
ongoing assistance to a group of 44 South Asian migrants who remain
stranded in the southern port city of Kamsar.

"Current European funding only applies to IOM's operations in
Senegal," says IOM's Laurent de Boeck. "More money is needed if IOM
is to provide the adequate level of assistance to migrants who
remain stranded in West Africa."

For further information, please contact:

Laurent de Boeck

IOM Dakar

Tel: +221 869 6200

E-mail: "mailto:ldeboeck@iom.int">ldeboeck@iom.int