A boat carrying dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe capsized off the coast of Libya, leaving more than 60 men, women, and children dead, the UN migration agency said. The shipwreck, which took place overnight between Thursday and Friday, was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a key but dangerous route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, the AP reports. Thousands have died, officials have said. The UN's International Organization for Migration said in a statement late Saturday that the boat was carrying 86 migrants when strong waves swamped it off the town of Zuwara on Libya's western coast and that 61 migrants drowned, according to survivors.
"The central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world's most dangerous migration routes," the agency wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The European Union's border agency said in a statement Sunday that its plane located the partially deflated rubber boat Thursday evening in Libya's search and rescue zone. "The people were in severe danger because of adverse weather conditions, with waves reaching heights of" 8.2 feet, the agency, known as Frontex, said. Alarm Phone—a hotline for migrants in distress—said in a tweet that some migrants onboard reached out to the volunteer group that in turn alerted authorities including the Libyan coastguard, "who stated that they would not search for them." A spokesman for the Libyan coast guard was not immediately available for comment.
Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. More than 2,250 people died on the central European route this year, said Flavio Di Giacomo, an IOM spokesperson, per the AP. It's "a dramatic figure which demonstrates that unfortunately not enough is being done to save lives at sea," Di Giacomo wrote on X. According to the IOM's missing migrants project, at least 940 migrants were reported dead and 1,248 missing off Libya between Jan. 1 and Nov. 18.
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