Maritime Security and Safety
144 Dead or Missing as “Backway” Migrant Boat Drifts 25 Days off Mauritania
144 Dead or Missing as “Backway” Migrant Boat Drifts 25 Days off Mauritania
UNHCR Renews Warning Over Deadly Atlantic Route
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
At least 144 people, most of them from The Gambia, have been confirmed dead or gone missing after a migrant boat that spent nearly 25 days drifting in the Atlantic Ocean was finally rescued off the coast of Mauritania, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has confirmed.
The vessel, a wooden pirogue that departed from Bafuloto in The Gambia with around 160 people on board, ran out of fuel far from shore and drifted helplessly for over three weeks before it was intercepted and towed into the Mauritanian port city of Nouadhibou on 18 July. Only 38 survivors were found alive, alongside the bodies of some of those who had perished. Mauritania’s Ministry of Fisheries put the number still unaccounted for at 122, with one body recovered separately.
Passengers on the stranded boat reportedly ran out of food and water within days and were forced to drink seawater to survive. Among the 38 survivors pulled from the vessel were two children who lost every member of their family during the croossing and are now recovering in hospital in Mauritania, according to UNHCR spokesperson Matt Saltmarsh, who briefed reporters in Geneva.
The Bafuloto boat was the deadliest of three separate disembarkations that Mauritanian authorities, UNHCR and humanitarian partners handled between 14 and 18 July, a week in which 387 people in total were brought safely ashore from vessels in distress. In a separate incident during the same window, a boat that had set out from neighbouring Senegal was intercepted with all 179 people on board rescued alive. A further person died aboard another vessel that disembarked on 14 July.
UNHCR described itself as “extremely saddened” by the deaths and again labelled the Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands, roughly 1,677 kilometres from Bafuloto, “one of the world’s deadliest,” citing the extreme distances involved and the routine use of overcrowded, unseaworthy wooden boats never designed for open-ocean voyages of that length.
The tragedy fits into a grim and escalating pattern. According to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, 1,214 people died or disappeared on the West Africa/Atlantic route to the Canary Islands in 2025 alone, out of nearly 8,000 migrant deaths recorded worldwide that year. IOM has also warned that the real toll on the Atlantic route is almost certainly far higher, since search-and-rescue information is increasingly restricted and many disappearances at sea are never verified or linked to any known incident.
The route has become deadlier even as arrival numbers have fallen. Mauritania, a key transit and departure point for the crossing, signed a migration-management partnership with the European Union and subsequently launched a crackdown on departures involving coastal patrols, document raids and mass expulsions, a campaign that has drawn criticism from neighbouring countries over alleged human rights violations. IOM notes that as border enforcement has tightened, migrants have increasingly been pushed toward longer, more dangerous, and more geographically dispersed departure points further down the West African coast, rather than being deterred from travelling altogether.
UNHCR has renewed its call for governments in the region and in Europe to expand access to education and legitimate livelihood opportunities as alternatives to the crossing, warning that enforcement alone will not stop people from attempting the journey as long as the underlying drivers of migration remain unaddressed.
Nigeria Watch: When “Japa” Meets the Backway. A Warning Nigeria’s Maritime and Water Transport Stakeholders Cannot Ignore
The Bafuloto tragedy did not happen in Nigerian waters, and its 144 dead and missing were overwhelmingly Gambian and other West African nationals rather than Nigerians. But for Nigeria’s maritime community, and for the ordinary Nigerians who increasingly frame irregular emigration through the lens of “Japa,” the incident is impossible to read as someone else’s story.
The Gambian “Backway” and the Nigerian “Japa” impulse are, at bottom, the same phenomenon wearing different national colours, a generation convinced that the only rational response to state failure is exit, by whatever means available. Nigeria’s version of “Japa” has, for now, expressed itself mainly through visa routes, student migration, and irregular land and sea journeys through the Sahara and Libya toward the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic pirogue route favoured by Gambians, Senegalese and other coastal West Africans sailing for the Canary Islands. But the Atlantic route is not sealed off from Nigerians, and the underlying pressure which include youth unemployment, currency depreciation, insecurity, and a collapsing sense of opportunity at home.
This is where the maritime and blue economy governance conversation Waterways News covers every week intersects directly with a humanitarian catastrophe. NIMASA, NIWA and the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola have spent this period building out a blue economy agenda anchored on the promise that Nigeria’s waters, properly harnessed, can generate legitimate livelihoods: fisheries, aquaculture, coastal tourism, cabotage shipping, and inland waterways transport. The Bafuloto disaster is a brutal illustration of what happens when that promise fails to materialise fast enough, and young people instead look at the same ocean and see not opportunity but an exit route worth risking their lives for.
There is also a sober lesson here for Nigeria’s own inland and coastal waterways safety conversation, one this publication has returned to repeatedly in the context of fatal boat capsizings on routes across different parts of the country. The Bafuloto boat failed for reasons that will sound uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has covered Nigerian boat mishaps: an unregulated wooden vessel, wildly overloaded beyond any safe capacity, undertaking a journey with no functioning safety net, no reliable fuel margin, and no search-and-rescue backstop until it was almost too late. Whether the vessel is crossing the Atlantic toward the Canary Islands or crossing the Lagos Lagoon toward Apapa, or from the Benue to the Niger rivers, the pattern of preventable waterways death, poor vessel standards, absent regulation, and desperate passengers absorbing risks that better-resourced systems would simply not allow, is the same.
For Nigeria’s seafarer and boat operator associations, including cooperative operators like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON or advocacy group like SWAAADO, that this publication engages closely, the episode is also a reminder that the maritime labour market genuinely on offer to irregular migrants in Europe is rarely the dignified opportunity the journey promises.
Undocumented migrants overwhelmingly end up in precarious, low-status, and often exploitative work, frequently work that mirrors the very maritime, artisanal and service-sector jobs Nigerians could be doing at home, but without the legal protection, wage security, or dignity that a properly regulated domestic blue economy could offer.
None of this argues against legal migration, which remains a legitimate and valuable pathway for Nigerian professionals, including trained seafarers seeking certification and berths abroad through proper channels. It argues for urgency on CVFF disbursement reaching genuine small operators rather than stalling in bureaucratic limbo; on NIMASA and NIWA’s safety regulation of inland and coastal vessels being enforced rather than merely announced; and on the blue economy’s job-creation promises translating into visible, bankable opportunities before another generation concludes that a 25-day gamble on an open boat to Europe is more rational than staying home.
The 144 lives lost off Mauritania were not Nigerian. But the conditions that put them on that boat, and the temptation that could just as easily put a young Nigerian on the next one, are not foreign to us at all.
Maritime Security and Safety
Shipping Lines Hail Security Gains as US Lifts 12-Year Condition of Entry on Nigerian Vessels
Shipping Lines Hail Security Gains as US Lifts 12-Year Condition of Entry on Nigerian Vessels
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
International shipping lines operating in Nigeria have welcomed the United States Coast Guard’s (USCG) decision to remove the 12-year Condition of Entry (CoE) restriction on vessels arriving in the US from Nigerian ports, describing it as evidence of the country’s improved maritime security standing.
The CoE, in force since 2014, subjected vessels that had called at Nigerian ports within their previous five port calls to additional security checks and enhanced scrutiny before US entry. Its removal ends over a decade of extra costs, delays and paperwork for operators trading between Nigeria and the US.
Maersk’s Terminal Planning Lead for West Africa, Srijesh Subramanian, said the move would benefit both importers and exporters given the volume of Nigerian trade with the US, and would likely embolden shipping companies to expand their services. He read the decision as a signal that Nigeria now looks like a safer environment than previously perceived.
Ocean Network Express’s Nigeria Director, Stefan Pedersen, credited the outcome to NIMASA’s sustained work, though he noted ONE has no direct US sailings and so is not directly affected. He expects the removal of restrictions to still ease trade generally for lines that do run direct US services.
Pacific International Lines’ Managing Director, Ugo Opiah, framed the lifting as an image win: qualifying for US standards marks a country as a high-integrity player, and Nigeria’s decade-plus wait to clear the bar signals real improvement in maritime security compliance.
Mediterranean Shipping Company’s Vessel and Terminal Coordinator, Adesina Omoparuwa, said the restriction had forced MSC into trans-shipment routings rather than direct Nigeria–US calls, the same workaround the line uses for China, and that direct service should now become possible, opening opportunities for US-based businesses to trade directly through Nigerian ports.
Nigeria Watch
The CoE’s removal is the payoff of a process that has run since at least 2019, when the USCG first proposed a phased, bi-annual assessment track with NIMASA to bring Nigerian ports into full ISPS Code compliance. The agency conducted four full assessments of Nigeria’s port facilities and national maritime security framework between March 2024 and April 2026 before signing off.
Marine and Blue Economy Minister Dr Adegboyega Oyetola has called the lift a major milestone, crediting sustained collaboration between the Ministry, NIMASA, port and terminal operators and shipping lines. Washington has echoed that framing: in a letter dated August 26, 2026, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Frank Garcia congratulated Oyetola on the reform, tying it to Nigeria’s anti-terrorism and port-security compliance record.
For Nigeria’s port competitiveness push, running alongside the NPERA Act’s commencement and the deep seaport approvals at Badagry, Olokola, Ibom and Bakassi, the CoE exit removes one of the more persistent reputational drags on the sector: an active US security flag that shipping lines, insurers and freight forwarders had priced into Nigeria-bound trade for over a decade. Whether the savings in inspection time, insurance and freight cost are passed down to Nigerian shippers, or absorbed by the lines quoted here, is the next thing worth watching.
Two More Tankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz as Attack Count Hits Five in a Week
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Two more tankers have been hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving two seafarers with minor injuries and pushing the number of reported attacks or security incidents against commercial vessels in the waterway to at least five since 16 September.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said an inbound tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile on Monday. Two crew members sustained minor injuries, but the vessel stayed under its own power and continued to its next port, with no environmental impact reported.
Hours later, UKMTO issued a second alert after an outbound LPG tanker reported being struck by debris from unknown projectiles. All crew were reported safe and the vessel also continued its voyage. Authorities are investigating both incidents, and UKMTO has not attributed either attack to a specific actor.
The two strikes build on a Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) advisory covering three earlier attacks between 16 and 18 September, one of which saw a tanker’s hull breached by a projectile, sparking a fire. JMIC continues to rate the threat level in the strait as “severe,” citing a high likelihood of deliberate hostile action and pointing to a pattern of harassment by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — drone overflights, surveillance of merchant vessels and VHF hailing, alongside the direct attacks.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains sharply depressed. Only 17 commodity vessels were visibly transiting over the weekend, down from 37 the week before and against a pre-war daily average of roughly 125. That figure excludes vessels sailing with their AIS transponders switched off, and JMIC notes a persistent gap between visible and actual traffic.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders, the Hormuz crisis is no longer a distant Gulf story. It is a cost line. Every fresh escalation feeds directly into the war-risk insurance premiums and freight rates that Nigerian importers, refiners and shipping agents ultimately absorb, since global tanker and container capacity pulled off the Hormuz route tightens supply elsewhere and pushes rates up across long-haul trades, including those serving West African ports.
The renewed attacks also sharpen the stakes around Nigeria’s push for a stronger voice at the IMO Council table and its broader blue-economy diplomacy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. A sustained Gulf disruption is exactly the kind of systemic shock that tests whether Nigeria’s seat translates into influence over how global shipping risk, insurance and rerouting decisions are made, rather than Nigeria simply absorbing the downstream cost.
Locally, the episode is a reminder of the layered nature of “maritime security” as a policy word: the Deep Blue Project and Gulf of Guinea security architecture address piracy and armed robbery close to home, but Nigeria’s ports and shippers remain exposed to security failures thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf.
Waterways News will continue tracking how the Hormuz situation feeds into freight cost pressure at Nigerian ports and NIMASA’s public messaging on the issue.
Navy Renews Call for Special Maritime Courts, But Nigeria’s Justice Gap Persists
By Raymond Gold
The Nigerian Navy has again pressed for the creation of dedicated courts to try maritime offences, arguing that Nigeria’s regular judicial process is too slow to match the pace at which security agencies are arresting suspects at sea.
The renewed push came last week in Lagos at the 4th Ehingbeti Blue Economy Hub, on a panel built around strengthening the regulatory and justice frameworks needed to secure Nigeria’s blue economy. The session drew senior officers from the Navy and Marine Police, alongside a retired flag officer and other maritime stakeholders.
Rear Admiral A. A. Mustapha, Flag Officer Commanding the Western Naval Command, represented on the panel by his Chief Staff Officer, Rear Admiral N. C. Ekwom, said Nigeria is working toward an integrated maritime security strategy that would fold the country’s various security agencies into one common operating picture. He pointed to the Navy’s Falcon Eye system and the Regional Maritime Awareness Capability System as the technological backbone of that effort, noting that artificial intelligence is increasingly being layered onto surveillance operations.
Mustapha’s team acknowledged a persistent integration problem: the Navy’s Maritime Command and Control Centre reserves roughly 15 seats for personnel from partner agencies, but most command centres nationwide still operate in isolation. He linked the gap to a wider unfamiliarity with the sector across government, describing it as “maritime blindness”, a failure, in his words, to recognise the maritime domain’s importance to national development.
It was retired Rear Admiral Olanrewaju Beckley, however, who delivered the panel’s sharpest message: that slow prosecutions, not weak detection, may be the Navy’s biggest handicap. Beckley ran through the familiar list of threats I including illegal fishing, illegal bunkering, kidnapping for ransom, illegal refineries, terrorism and smuggling, and said the Navy’s “detect, arrest and prosecute” model breaks down at the final stage. Suspects and their vessels can sit in detention for extended periods awaiting trial, he said, a delay that risks suspects walking free and undermines the deterrent effect of every arrest made at sea.
His prescription was the same one Nigerian naval officers have floated repeatedly over the past decade: dedicated maritime courts that could fast-track case determination and cut down on prolonged detention without trial. Beckley also called for heavier government investment in surveillance assets such as vessels, drones and manned aerial platforms, arguing that the size of Nigeria’s maritime estate demands a security budget to match.
Assistant Inspector-General of Police Okunade Ronke Nurat, represented by CSP Olalekan Faniyi, described the working relationship between the Marine Police and the Navy as cordial, with joint patrols proceeding without friction, though she conceded there was room for deeper collaboration. Other panellists urged that any security-first approach to the blue economy be matched with investment in the coastal and riverine communities that live alongside Nigeria’s waterways.
The session’s recommendations, taken together, called for tighter integration among maritime security agencies, wider surveillance deployment, closer Navy–Marine Police cooperation, more security-asset funding, specialised judicial mechanisms for maritime crimes, and stronger economic support for coastal communities.
Nigeria Watch
Beckley’s plea will sound familiar to anyone who has followed this file. The Navy has asked for special maritime courts under at least three different Chiefs of Naval Staff over the past decade — through a Senate committee proposal in 2016, a direct appeal from the naval leadership in 2021, and now this latest call in 2026 — with no legislation to show for it. NIMASA’s leadership has separately lobbied the judiciary through its annual Admiralty Law Seminar for Judges, seeking faster case turnaround for the same reason Beckley cited: arrests that don’t stick because prosecutions crawl.
What has changed since 2020 is the legal toolkit, not the court structure. The Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act gave prosecutors their first dedicated piracy statute and produced Nigeria’s first SPOMO conviction at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt. But SPOMO cases still route through the same generalist Federal High Court dockets — carrying admiralty, commercial and constitutional matters alongside maritime crime — that Beckley says are the bottleneck. A special court, as envisaged, would need enabling legislation the National Assembly has never passed, whatever the number of naval appeals for it.
For operators represented by cooperatives like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON, the stakes in this debate cut both ways. Faster maritime prosecutions would, in principle, mean faster resolution for the vessels and crews the Navy detains, a genuine grievance among small-scale operators who say their boats and livelihoods can be tied up in custody for months over infractions far short of piracy or oil theft.
But any push to tighten enforcement and expand naval surveillance across the inland and coastal waterways will also be watched closely by the same informal operators, who have long argued that security crackdowns too often catch legitimate local transporters in the same net cast for pirates and illegal bunkerers. Whether the next iteration of this proposal survives the National Assembly, or joins its predecessors as a recommendation without a bill, will say much about how seriously Abuja is treating the justice half of its blue economy ambitions.
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