A group of 69 stowaways trying to board a ship bound for Ireland have been arrested by police in the west African country of Gambia. Local police sources say the stowaways were detained by security forces on Saturday after a tip-off from the chief of Tanji, a village 32 kilometres west of the capital Banjul.
Ireland has become a favoured destination for asylum-seekers from west Africa in recent years.
About 40 per cent of those applying for asylum here over the past five years come from the region, mostly from Nigeria.
The Department of Justice says it believes many of these are trafficked into Ireland, as 70 per cent of arrivals first emerge in the State at the refugee applications centre in Lower Mount Street in Dublin.
There are no direct transport links between here and west Africa, but immigration officials say they have anecdotal evidence of smuggling taking place through the UK.
In the weekend incident, the stowaways were in Tanji to board a Russian vessel coming from Senegal's capital, Dakar, and bound for Ireland that was scheduled to pick them up on Saturday evening.
"All of them are now in custody for interrogation," a police source said late on Saturday.
According to the police, the detainees said they had paid over €1,400 each for the trip, arranged by a Gambian and a Ghanaian whose identities have yet to be established.
The detainees comprised 52 Ghanaians, 11 Nigerians, two Gambians, one Guinean, one Togolese, one Ivory Coast national and one from Burkina Faso.
"It is expected that once the investigations are over, the foreign nationals will be deported to their respective countries while legal action may be taken against any Gambians involved in this," the police source said. - (Reuters)