Almost 100 are missing after Med boat sinks

THE Italian coastguard said on Saturday nearly a hundred people were missing after a boat with migrants sank off the Libyan coast.

“The bodies of eight people have been recovered. Four people have been saved, and they say 107 migrants were onboard the boat in all,” the agency’s press office said. Search operations were continuing after nightfall in poor weather and sea conditions, it said.

A French warship, patrolling under the EU’s Frontex border operation, picked up the survivors and two merchant ships were heading for the area, located about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the Libyan coast.

A Frontex plane and an Italian naval helicopter also joined the operation.

On Friday, around 550 migrants were picked up from four inflatable dinghies by Italian coastguard vessels, an an Italian naval ship, an NGO boat and a merchant vessel.

In recent years Italy has been on the front line of migrants arriving across the Mediterranean and has been pushing for agreements with governments in North Africa to facilitate returns.

Pe o p l e - s muggl e r s h a v e exploited the chaos in Libya since the 2011 uprising that overthrew dictator Moamer Kadhafi to traffic migrants in boats to Italy 300 kilometres away.

The UN has said more than 5,000 people died in 2016 trying to cross the Mediterranean, most of them on the Libya-Italy route.