At least eight bodies have been recovered from a boat carrying African migrants that was found on the coast of Comoros, officials on the \u200cIndian Ocean archipelago nation said this Thursday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Authorities believe the migrants were attempting to reach Mayotte, a French territory located between Mozambique and Madagascar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The vessel was discovered late on Wednesday after residents of the coastal town of \u2060Mitsamiouli heard cries for help and alerted police, a local hospital director told Reuters.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were conflicting reports on the death toll.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Comoros Interior Minister Mohamed Ahamada said eight bodies had been recovered and that he would provide an update later. The hospital Director said the toll could reach 17, adding that survivors reported they were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, \u200cthough \u2060police were still working to verify nationalities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Search and rescue operations were continuing on Thursday, the Comoros civil security directorate said in a statement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A security source told Reuters the boat had been carrying \u2060about 50 people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Migrants often attempt the dangerous crossing to Mayotte, which, though the poorest of France’s overseas territories, offers access to the French \u2060welfare system.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 2024, at least 25 people died near Mayotte after human traffickers capsized their boat, according to the \u2060United Nations migration agency IOM, which has said thousands have died on the route over the years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22145,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-29245","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"At least eight bodies have been recovered from a boat carrying African migrants that was found on the coast of Comoros","published_date":"2026-03-19 13:20:19","news_description":"At least eight bodies have been recovered from a boat carrying African migrants that was found on the coast of Comoros","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29247,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29245\/revisions\/29247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}