50 MIGRANTS DIE IN SEA, LAND TRAGEDIES IN LIBYA
A flimsy rubber boat collapsed and sank in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya’s coast, leaving at least 30 people including women and children missing and feared dead, an international charity said Wednesday, as officials in Libya said they found the bodies of 20 migrants in the desert close to the border with Chad.
The deaths marked the latest tragedies involving migrants who use Libya as a transit point on a perilous journey to Europe.
The vessel sank in the deadly central Mediterranean Sea route, said Doctors Without Borders, also known by its abbreviation MSF for the French name of the group.
A rescue ship operated by MSF reached the boat, and managed to rescue dozens of other migrants including some women, the charity said. A pregnant woman died on board the rescue ship, Geo Barents.
The missing migrants include five women and eight children, MSF said.
“We have seen so many people drowning — men, women and children — and we will never forget the day we had yesterday. We tried to save them but we couldn’t save them all,” a 17-year-old boy from Cameroon said in a testimony posted by MSF on Twitter.
Libyan authorities, meanwhile, said Wednesday they found the bodies of 20 migrants who died from thirst in the desert 75 miles from the border with Chad.
The Ambulance and Emergency Authority in the southeastern city of Kufra said the migrants were on their way from Chad to Libya when their vehicle broke down about 192 miles south of the city. It was not clear when the vehicle broke down.