63 missing in Mediterranean shipwreck

TRIPOLI — A new shipwreck off the Libyan coast has left 63 people missing in the latest disaster to hit migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean.

The group are feared drowned after the inflatable boat they were on sank, a spokesman for Libya's navy General AyoubKacem told AFP, citing eyewitness accounts from survivors.

Kacem said that 41 people wearing life jackets were rescued. "The coast guards did not find bodies in the area," he said. According to survivors, there were 104 people on board the vessel, which sank off Garaboulli, east of Tripoli.

In the last few months, this area has become the main point of departure for inflatable boats overloaded with migrants seeking to make the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean to Italy.

In addition to the 41 people rescued, a Libyan coastguard boat returned to Tripoli Monday with another 235 migrants, including 54 infants and 29 women, rescued in two other operations in the same area.

The boat's return to shore was delayed 24 hours due to a breakdown, Kacem said.

Including the latest shipwreck, some 170 migrants have gone missing in the Mediterranean between Friday and Sunday.

On Friday, three babies died off the coast of Libya while 100 people remained missing in another Mediterranean shipwreck.

Just 16 were rescued, all young men, while the missing included two babies and three children under the age of 12.

More than 1,000 people have died in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to International Organization for Migration figures.

"There is an alarming increase in deaths at sea off Libya Coast," said IOM Libya Chief of Mission Othman Belbeisi.

"Smugglers are exploiting the desperation of migrants to leave before there are further crackdowns on Mediterranean crossings by Europe," he said in a statement.

Last week, Kacem warned of an increase in departures ahead of a feared closure of European borders, after Rome closed Italian ports to NGO rescue ships.