Dakar, September 10 (RHC)-- Senegal’s navy says it has found 17 more bodies from a boat carrying refugees and migrants that sank off the West African country, raising the death toll to 26.

In a post on X, the navy said on Tuesday that it had recovered “17 lifeless bodies” after nine people were initially announced dead following Sunday’s shipwreck off the western town of Mbour.

The search is ongoing, the navy said.  Many of the vessel’s passengers remain missing.

The boat – a narrow, wooden fishing vessel known as a pirogue – was carrying more than 100 people from the town, and it capsized after sailing only 4 km (2.5 miles), state broadcaster Radio Television Senegalaise said late on Sunday.

Witnesses in Mbour were quoted as saying that dozens of people had boarded the boat, the AFP news agency reported.

A spokesperson for the armed forces told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the navy had sent a plane and two boats to search for the dead and survivors.