CAIRO – More than 100 migrants traveling to Europe are feared dead in a shipwreck off Libya, according to independent rescue groups.
The Libyan Coast Guard searched for the boat but could not find it due to limited resources, a service official said.
The humanitarian group SOS Méditerranée, which operates the rescue ship Ocean Viking, announced late Thursday that the capsized rubber boat, which originally carried around 130 people, had been sighted in the Mediterranean northeast of the Libyan capital Tripoli. The ship did not find any survivors, but the helpers were able to see at least 10 bodies near the wreck.
“We think of the life that has been lost and the families who may never be sure what happened to their loved ones,” the group said in a statement.
Migrant traffic has raised questions in the countries of the European Union and in Libya as to who is responsible for rescuing those at risk at sea.
SOS Méditerranée said the missing were expected to have died, adding to the 350 people who have drowned in the sea so far this year. She accused the governments of failing to conduct search and rescue operations.
In the years since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising, in which longtime Libyan leader Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi was overthrown and killed, the war-torn country has become the dominant transit point for migrants escaping war and poverty in Africa and flee in the Middle East. Smugglers often pack desperate families on poorly equipped rubber boats that stop and sink on the dangerous Mediterranean route.
Eugenio Ambrosi, chief of staff of the International Organization for Migration, said in a tweet: “These are the human consequences of policies that fail to respect international law and the most basic humanitarian requirements.”
AlarmPhone, which provides a crisis hotline for migrants in need in the Mediterranean, said it had close contact with the distressed boat for almost 10 hours before it capsized.
A Libyan Coast Guard spokesman, Cmdr. Masoud Ibrahim Masoud said the service searched the sea for more than 24 hours, adding, “The waves were very rough.”
Mr Masoud said the Coast Guard received rescue alerts around noon on Wednesday from two different rubber boats in distress east of Tripoli. A patrol ship was dispatched immediately and rescued 106 migrants, including women and children, who had been on board one of the two boats.
Two bodies were also pulled out of the water near the capsized vessel. He said the coast guard ship finally returned to port so that rescued migrants could receive medical assistance.
In the meantime, the Libyan authorities have asked three merchant ships and the Ocean Viking to search for the other missing boat until the Libyan patrol ship can join them again.
In recent years the European Union has teamed up with the Libyan Coast Guard and other local groups to contain such dangerous crossings. However, right-wing groups say these guidelines are at the mercy of migrants to armed groups or imprisoned in miserable prisons where abuse occurs.
