More than 60 people are believed to have died after a migrant boat from Senegal was found off West Africa’s Cape Verde islands, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday.

Sixty-three people are thought to have died, while the 38 survivors included four children aged 12 to 16, IOM spokeswoman Safa Msehli told AFP.

The long wooden fishing vessel, known as a pirogue, was spotted Monday in the Atlantic Ocean about 150 nautical miles (277 kilometres) from the Cape Verdean island of Sal, police said.

The Spanish fishing vessel that saw it alerted Cape Verdean authorities.

The Cape Verde archipelago lies about 600 kilometres (350 miles) off the coast on the maritime migration route to the Spanish Canary Islands – a gateway to the European Union.

Emergency services recovered the remains of seven people, Msehli told AFP, while another 56 people are believed to be missing.

“Generally, when people are reported missing following a shipwreck, they are presumed dead,” she said.

The boat left the Senegalese fishing village of Fasse Boye on July 10 with 101 people on board, Senegal’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, citing survivors.

At least 559 people died attempting to reach the Canary Islands in 2022, while 126 people were missing on the same route in the first months of this six-month ongoing year, with 15 shipwrecks recorded, according to IOM.

In July, 15 people drowned when a boat was found off the coast of Senegal’s capital Dakar.