ANTANANARIVO-At least 21 migrants died when their boat sank off the coast of Madagascar over the weekend, the island nation’s maritime authorities said on Monday, revising downwards its earlier toll.
“To date, 21 people have died, two are missing and 24 have survived. We assume that there were 47 people on board, according to information from fishermen who were the first to try rescue the shipwrecked,” director general of the Madagascar Maritime Authority (APMF) Jean Edmond Randrianantenaina told AFP. The APMF had in an earlier statement listed 22 dead of those who had “clandestinely taken a boat headed to (the French territory of) Mayotte, but that sank”. The accident occurred on Saturday. According to regional gendarmerie commander Jules Tovoson Andriatsiriniaina, “all the survivors fled once they reached the shore.