5 Senegalese Commandos Missing After Suspected Drug-Smuggling Boat Sinks

Five Senegalese marine commandos have been missing since Friday after a suspected drug-trafficking boat was scuttered off the coast of the capital, Dakar, during a search by the navy, the military said Saturday.

"During the search, the marine commando response team on board noticed that the ship's valves had opened," Col. Moussa Koulibaly, the army's director of information said in a statement. "There is every reason to believe that this sabotage action, consisting of sinking the ship, aimed to erase all evidence of the illicit cargo."

Seven patrol personnel and 10 members of the boat's crew were saved by rescuers, but a search is underway for five missing marine commandos, it said.

The vessel, which is suspected to be used in drug smuggling, was intercepted by a Senegalese patrol boat.

Drug smugglers are said to ship cocaine from South America to Europe, using West African nations as transit routes. -