At least 74 drown in wreck off Libya, UN agency says

At least 74 people drowned on Thursday when a rubber raft carrying migrants sank off the coast of Libya, the latest in a series of disasters in the world’s deadliest sea crossing, according to a United Nations agency.

The motorised raft, crowded with more than 120 people, had left Khoms, Libya, on Wednesday, according to the agency, the International Organisation for Migration. But the craft, which was ill equipped for the journey across the Mediterranean Sea, capsized on Thursday, it said.

Fishermen and the Libyan coast guard rescued 47 people and recovered 31 bodies, including the remains of at least one child, the agency said.

The wreck was just the latest to kill migrants on the notoriously dangerous journey from North Africa to Europe, across the Mediterranean.

At least eight other vessels carrying migrants have sunk in the central Mediterranean since Oct 1. And at least 900 people have drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe this year, some because of delayed rescue missions, the agency said.

More than 11,000 others rescued or intercepted at sea have been returned to Libya, putting them at risk of human rights abuses, including detention, abuse, trafficking and exploitation, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

In the past two days alone, at least 19 people, including two children, have drowned after two boats capsized in the central Mediterranean, while Open Arms — the only ship operating in the area that is run by a nongovernmental organisation — has rescued more than 200 people in three operations, the agency said.

“The mounting loss of life in the Mediterranean is a manifestation of the inability of states to take decisive action to redeploy much needed, dedicated search-and-rescue capacity in the deadliest sea crossing in the world,” Federico Soda, the organisation’s chief of mission in Libya, said in a statement.

The disaster came weeks after at least 140 migrants drowned when their boat sank off Senegal in the deadliest wreck this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

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