(REUTERS)

At least 70 people were killed when a boat capsized off the coast of West Africa, Gambia's foreign affairs ministry said late on Friday, in one of the deadliest marine accidents in the region in recent years.

Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel, believed to have departed from Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.

It was carrying an estimated 150 passengers, 16 of whom had been rescued.

Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday, and witness accounts suggest over 100 may have died, the statement said.