A boat washed ashore in Cape Verde was carrying 65 people with five survivors.

There were 65 people aboard the makeshift vessel that washed ashore Sunday on the island of Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, with five survivors, one of whom died after hospitalization, authorities said.

“The shipwreck victims reported that there were initially 65 people of different nationalities on board the ship, who were adrift at sea for several days,” the police statement said.

Those rescued were still unable to provide additional information to authorities, he added.

The case is similar to others involving ships that are adrift in the Atlantic Ocean after leaving the African continent for Europe in Spain’s Canary archipelago but lacking sufficient funds.

Authorities recovered five bodies from the boat, two of which were severely decomposed, and took five “very weak” men to the Baptista Souza hospital in Mindelo, one of whom died in the medical ward.

Of the four survivors, two are of Senegalese nationality and two are from Mali.

Police were alerted to the sighting of a vessel on a beach along the Viana coast, in the town of Callau, on the eastern side of Sao Vicente island, at 9:30 a.m. (10:30 a.m. in Lisbon) on Sunday.

The military and Civil Protection searched the area for other survivors, but to no avail.

“There is still no certainty about the origin of the pirogues,” said Vitoria Verissimo, regional head of Cape Verde’s National Civil Protection Service, adding that they were all male and “apparently young.”

The Joint Rescue Coordination Center of the Cape Verdean Coast Guard has already received information from Senegal about vessels of this type that were spotted a few days earlier.

The current work involves the Cape Verdean National Police, the Armed Forces, the Red Cross and the Judicial Police (JP).

In the meantime, the bodies were taken to the morgue of the Baptista de Souza Hospital in Mindelo so that the judicial panel could carry out the necessary steps for identification.

The Cape Verde archipelago has at times become a destination for drifting ships carrying people who risk their lives on precarious boats on the high seas to reach Europe, escaping poverty and violence.

Three more cases have been reported in the last 16 months.

In November 2022, a boat carrying 66 Senegalese immigrants washed ashore on the island of Sal.

Last January, a pirogue arrived in Boa Vista with 90 African migrants on board, killing two of them.

In July, a boat carrying 101 people from Senegal was found adrift off the island of Sal, Cape Verde, in August, with 38 survivors treated and repatriated.