More than 60 people died when a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Libya, the UN migration agency said.
Saturday’s sinking was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a dangerous route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe where thousands of people have died, according to authorities.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 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, citing survivors of the “dramatic sinking,” he reported. a declaration.
“The central Mediterranean remains one of the most dangerous migratory routes in the world,” the IOM wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
61 migrants, including women and children, drowned after a tragic shipwreck off Libya. According to survivors, the boat with about 86 people on board left the Libyan coast from Zwara. The central Mediterranean remains one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. pic.twitter.com/RsFSUzzFYK
– IOM Libya (@IOM_Libya) December 16, 2023
In recent years, Libya has become the main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and trying to reach European shores through the central Mediterranean.
More than 2,250 people have died on this route this year, according to IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo.
This is “a dramatic figure that shows that, unfortunately, not enough is done to save lives at sea,” Di Giacomo wrote in X.
In recent years, human traffickers have smuggled migrants across Libya’s long borders, shared with six nations. Migrants are crammed into poorly equipped boats, including inflatable boats, and undertake dangerous sea journeys.
Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers, where they are victims of abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rape and torture, which constitute crimes against humanity, according to the UN.
The abuses are often accompanied by attempts to extort detainees’ families before they are allowed to leave Libya on smugglers’ boats for Europe.
Source: TSF
