At least 10 fishermen drowned Tuesday when a Moroccan trawler sank in the Atlantic off the coast of disputed Western Sahara, authorities said, adding that two crew members remained missing. “Five sailors were rescued while the bodies of 10 others were recovered,” an official in the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region of Western Sahara told AFP. Search operations were underway to find the two missing fishermen, the official said. It was not immediatly clear why the trawler went down. It had been about 220 kilometres (135 miles) off the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara.
According to Morocco’s meteorological office, the sea was light to rough along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday. Western Sahara, disputed between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario movement, has a long Atlantic coastline and access to rich fishing waters.
