About 115 people are missing and feared to have drowned and another 134 were rescued by Libyan coast guards and local fishermen after a wooden boat carrying migrants capsized off Libya, a Libyan navy official said on Thursday.
MIGRANTS WERE TRYING TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY
Earlier, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said that up to 150 people were feared dead. “The worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year has just occurred,” UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said in a tweet.
There were about 300 people on board, mainly from Eritrea and other sub-Saharan Africa and Arab countries, when the boat capsized off the coast near Komas, east of the capital Tripoli, Libyan navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem said.
Libya says the migrants are illegally entering and leaving the country. It regularly detains them in centers that the UN says are effectively jails, exposing them to the added risk of being caught up in the country’s civil war.
“EU POLITICIANS LET PEOPLE DIE”
Human rights activists have accused politicians in the European Union of turning a blind eye and letting people die rather than risk a voter backlash by appearing soft on immigration. Europe struggled to cope with an influx of more than one million refugees and migrants in 2015.
Italy, many African migrants’ intended first destination, has taken a tough line since a populist government took office in 2018, and immediately sought to close the nation’s ports to rescued migrants.
