Around 250 feared dead after bodies found off Libya

ROME — More than 250 African migrants were feared drowned in the Mediterranean on Thursday after a charity’s rescue boat found five corpses close to two sinking rubber dinghies off Libya.

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was “deeply alarmed” after the Golfo Azzuro, a boat operated by Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, reported the recovery of the bodies close to the drifting, partially submerged dinghies, 24 kilometers off the Libyan coast.

“We don’t think there can be any other explanation than that these dinghies would have been full of people,” Proactiva spokeswoman Laura Lanuza said. “It seems clear that they sank.”

She added that the inflatables, of a kind usually used by people traffickers, would typically have been carrying 120140 migrants each.

“In over a year we have never seen any of these dinghies

migrants have died trying to make the crossing between Italy and Libya since start of this year.

that were anything other than packed.”

Lanuza said the bodies recovered were African men with estimated ages of between 16 and 25. They had drowned in the 24 hours prior to them being discovered shortly after dawn on Thursday in waters directly north of the Libyan port of Sabrata, according to the rescue boat’s medical staff.

Vincent Cochetel, director of UNHCR’s Europe bureau, said NGO boats patrolling the area had been called to the aid of a third stricken boat on Thursday afternoon, raising fears others may have perished on what Proactiva called “a black day in the Mediterranean”.

Despite rough winter seas, migrant departures from Libya on boats chartered by people traffickers have accelerated in recent months from already-record levels.

Nearly 6,000 people have been picked up by Italian-coordinated rescue boats since the end of last week, bringing the number brought to Italy since the start of 2017 to nearly 22,000, a significant rise on the same period in previous years.

Aid groups say the accelerating exodus is being driven by worsening living conditions for migrants in Libya and by fears the sea route to Europe could soon be closed to traffickers.

Prior to the latest incident, the UN estimated that at least 440 migrants had died trying to make the crossing from Libya to Italy since the start of 2017. The UNHCR estimates total deaths crossing the Mediterranean at nearly 600.

Those figures, which are also sharply up on previous years, are based on a combination of bodies recovered and testimonies from survivors of shipwrecks. What no one knows is how many people die without any trace, as in the case of the latest apparent tragedy.

... There are no words to describe what I’m feeling ... I could only think about my son.” Jung Seong-wook, father of one of the 304 victims