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01 April 2009 Tripoli - Libyan authorities have
recovered the bodies of 100 migrants trying to reach
Europe who drowned after their boat sank off Libya,
officials said on Wednesday.
"Seventy seven bodies of the migrants washed up in the
beach west of Tripoli late on Tuesday and 23 more
bodies were found between Sunday night and Tuesday,"
an official told Reuters.
He and other officials believed the migrants were
among 365 people who boarded the ship, which was
supposed to hold only 75 people.
The migrants were Somalis, Nigerians, Eritreans,
Kurds, Algerians, Moroccans, Palestinians and
Tunisians, officials said. The ship was one of four
migrant boats which had sailed from Libya between
Saturday and Sunday, apparently heading to Italy,
Libyan officials said.
Libyan coastguards had rescued 350 migrants, many of
them women and children, after their boat broke down
on Sunday near a Libyan offshore oilfield. they said.
"As for the fate of the two remaining boats, we have
information that one had reached Italy and the latest
information we had about the other boat was it had
left Libyan waters and was spotted close to Malta," a
Libyan official said.
There are an estimated 1 to 1.5 million African
migrants in Libya, drawn by the need for unskilled
labour, according to International Organisation for
Migration (IOM).
Libya is both a transit and a destination country for
migrants. Most take odd jobs to gather enough money to
pay smugglers for the risky journey to Italy.
IOM and Libyan officials say the new upsurge of
illegal migration from North Africa might have been
prompted by fears of migrants and people smugglers
that Libya and Italy would step up crackdown on
illegal migration next month. Tripoli and Rome have
reached an agreement on joint sea patrols to try to
stem the flow of illegal migrants. The accord becomes
effective on May 15. |
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