NOUADHIBOU, July 23 -- Two children whose families perished at sea were among the 38 people pulled from a migrant vessel off the coast of Mauritania this month, the United Nations refugee agency confirmed Wednesday, after a boat that had left The Gambia carrying 160 people ran out of fuel and drifted for 25 days across one of the Atlantic's most lethal crossing routes. At least 143 of those aboard are dead or missing.

The vessel departed from Bafuloto in The Gambia, headed for the Canary Islands, Spain. When it ran out of fuel it entered a waiting period measured not in hours but in weeks, a condition that has become familiar to rescue workers who operate along the Atlantic route between West Africa and Spain's archipelago. Mauritanian c...