At least 4 Dead After Boat Carrying Migrant Workers Overturned Off Libya’s Coast By The Media Line Staff Rescue teams in Libya reported Saturday that four passengers traveling on a boat that had capsized days earlier were found dead. Two boats carrying nearly one hundred passengers overturned off the coast of Al-Khums on Thursday. […]
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The Media Line: At least 4 Dead After Boat Carrying Migrant Workers Overturned Off Libya’s Coast
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At least 4 Dead After Boat Carrying Migrant Workers Overturned Off Libya’s Coast
By The Media Line Staff
Rescue teams in Libya reported Saturday that four passengers traveling on a boat that had capsized days earlier were found dead.
Two boats carrying nearly one hundred passengers overturned off the coast of Al-Khums on Thursday. The Libyan Red Crescent reported that four of the 26 Bangladeshis on the first boat did not survive the accident.
A second vessel carrying 69 people —among them two Egyptians and many Sudanese—also overturned near the same coastal city, located roughly 118 kilometers east of Tripoli. Officials did not confirm how many survived or were still missing from that boat, but photographs released by the Red Crescent showed volunteers assisting shocked and exhausted passengers, many wrapped in thermal blankets and seated on the ground.
The group said local Coast Guard units and port security officers participated in the rescue effort and that the recovered bodies were transferred to the authorities under orders from the city’s public prosecutor. Images posted online showed rows of black body bags arranged inside a port facility as teams carried out recovery and identification procedures.
The incident followed a similar tragedy on Wednesday, reported by the International Organization for Migration, which said at least 42 people vanished and are presumed dead after a rubber craft sank near the Al Bouri oilfield, an offshore site northwest of Libya. The organization noted that the boat went down in an area where the current often pushes small vessels off course.
Libya has remained one of the main departure points for people escaping war and economic collapse since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi, when the country’s internal conflict and fragmented border controls enabled smuggling networks to expand across the desert and coastline.
Multiple disasters at sea involving migrants traveling to Libya have occurred in recent weeks. In mid-October, authorities retrieved 61 bodies along a stretch of shoreline west of Tripoli. A separate incident in September left at least 50 people dead after a fire broke out aboard a boat carrying Sudanese refugees.