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AP search for missing migrants leads to unmarked graves on the beach

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Amid mystery about
the whereabouts of several migrant boats missing enroute to Spain via ‘The Atlantic
Route,’ Dakar-based Sam Mednick travelled north to talk to people in
fishing town Saint-Louis.

In only a few days
spent there, Mednick was able to produce a strong all-format report on the
hitherto unreported response of Senegalese authorities to dead bodies found on
the country’s shoreline. She happened to overhear a phone call between an
official and a fireman reporting that bodies that had just been found on the
beach were being buried immediately in the sand by authorities, with no
ceremony and apparently with no investigation, even though it’s required by
Senegalese and international law.

Mednick worked hard
to verify what she had heard, teaming up with Renata Brito to work on story
elements. Mednick and Brito’s story was able to displace news of a coup in
Niger as the top story on a leading African news portal and was picked up by
clients around the world.

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