Nouakchott
At least 62 migrants travelling on a makeshift boat have drowned off the coast of Mauritania, in the worst loss of life this year along the increasingly travelled western Atlantic migration route to Europe. Eighty-three survivors managed to swim to shore after their boat, which was heading for SpainĀ“s Canary Islands, capsized when it hit a rock. The migrants āwere mostly clandestine immigrants trying to reach Spain, coming from Banjul in Gambia,ā MauritaniaĀ“s interior ministry said in a statement.