161 migrants rescued off Mauritania, coastguard says

Mauritania's coastguard said it rescued 161 migrants, including 17 children, from a boat in trouble off the country's coast.

The coastguard said the migrants were rescued on Tuesday after their boat had set out from Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, and spent about eight days at sea.

All the people on board were safe, but they were exhausted and the vessel had an engine problem, the coastguard said. The migrants were taken to a reception centre in Nouakchott.

The coastguard described the rescue as its second major emergency operation in a week. Last Friday, a coastguard vessel took more than 300 migrants from a boat drifting off Mauritania's Atlantic coast.

Hundreds of people, mostly from Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea and Mali, have been rescued in Mauritanian waters in recent months while attempting to reach Europe. Hundreds have also died or gone missing after their boats sank.

Thousands of mostly young people have for years attempted the Atlantic route on overloaded and often dilapidated boats to reach Europe via Spain's Canary Islands.