A local official told AFP on Monday that a wooden boat carrying at least 15 people, most of whom were believed to be migrants, capsized off the coast of the Senegalese capital Dakar.

After the pirogue capsized overnight from Sunday to Monday, police and rescue personnel were still searching for further bodies.

"The navy told the vessel to draw alongside and they fled," Samba Kandji, the district deputy mayor, told AFP, adding that "some jumped off but didn't know how to swim."

"A total of 17 victims have been counted, including 15 lifeless bodies and two survivors," as per Martial Ndione, Dakar fire chief commander.

"This morning, at around 3:30 am, we were alerted to a capsized pirogue off Ouakam. Immediately, two teams of divers and four ambulances were dispatched to the scene, and operations got underway," said Ndione.

The origin of the boat, the number of individuals still missing, and the specifics of the capsize were all left out of his statement.

There was a wooden boat floating close to the shore that multiple witnesses on the beach claimed had been carrying the victims.

An AFP reporter observed firefighters removing a body from the water and laying it on the sand.

While dozens of onlookers watched the drama unfold, a 23-year-old one said he dreams of being a professional footballer and playing in Europe.

"I dreamed of going to Europe because there is no future here. I was ready to board a pirogue, but now I've decided to emigrate legally when the opportunity arises," he said, noting that the boats were too risky.

The migration route from northwest Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, which includes Spain's Canary Islands, has seen an uptick in activity in recent weeks.

Midway through July, a pirogue capsized off Saint-Louis, Senegal, not far from the Mauritania border, killing at least 14 people.

The navy of Morocco claimed to have saved roughly 900 unauthorized immigrants in a single week this month. They primarily came from sub-Saharan Africa.

Unofficial estimates place the number of deadly shipwrecks in the dozens if not hundreds. NGOs frequently record tragic shipwrecks in Moroccan, Spanish, and international waters.

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Search operations have recently been conducted in Spain to look for missing migrant boats from Senegal carrying more than 300 people, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.

Senegalese President Macky Sall "paid tribute to the memory of those who died in recent accidents at sea" during a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

In addition to deploying more "measures of surveillance, to raise awareness and support for youth" and strengthening public initiatives to "combat clandestine emigration," he urged the government to step up controls at potential departure points.