World News | UN Says at Least 55 Migrants Drowned in Shipwreck off Libya
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. A rubber boat carrying dozens of Europe-bound migrants sank off the coast of Libya and at least 55 people drowned, including women and children, the U.N. migration agency said on Wednesday.
Cairo, Apr 26 (AP) A rubber boat carrying dozens of Europe-bound migrants sank off the coast of Libya and at least 55 people drowned, including women and children, the U.N. migration agency said on Wednesday.
The International Organization for Migration said the disaster took place on Tuesday. The boat was carrying at least 60 migrants and had set off from the coastal town of Garabouli, east of Libya's capital, Tripoli.
The agency said five migrants survived the shipwreck and were brought back to shore by the Libyan coast guard. It was not immediately clear what happened to the vessel.
The was the latest tragedy in the central Mediterranean Sea, a key route for migrants. The IOM said at least 537 people have drowned or gone missing in migrant disasters in the Mediterranean so far this year, while over 4,300 have been intercepted and returned to Libya.
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Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country's lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants are crowded into ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages.
Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture — practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to U.N.-commissioned investigators.
The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families of those held, before the migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers' boats. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)