A boat carrying dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe on Saturday capsized off the coast of Libya, leaving more than 60 people dead, including women and children, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
The shipwreck was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a key, but dangerous, route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
Thousands have died, officials said.
Photo: AP
The UN migration agency said in a statement, citing survivors, that the boat was carrying 86 migrants when strong waves swamped it off the town of Zuwara on Libya’s western coast and that 61 migrants drowned.
“The central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes,” the agency wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Libya has in the past few years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
More than 2,250 people died on the central European route this year, IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said.
It’s “a dramatic figure which demonstrates that unfortunately not enough is being done to save lives at sea,” Di Giacomo wrote on X.
The IOM’s missing migrants project said that at least 940 migrants were reported dead and 1,248 missing off Libya between Jan. 1 and Nov. 18.
About 14,900 migrants, including more than 1,000 women and more than 530 children, were intercepted and returned to Libya this year, said the project, which tracks migration movements.
Last year, the project reported 529 dead and 848 missing off Libya. More than 24,600 were intercepted and returned to Libya.
Human traffickers in the past few years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders, which it shares with six nations. The migrants are crowded onto ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages.
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