Several hundred feared dead as two migrant boats sink off coast of Libya

The toll could rise to several hundred after two boats packed with migrants sank just miles off the Libyan coast. One of the boats had about 50 people on board and, had signaled for help. The second boat, with about 400 passengers, capsized later.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 28 August 2015.

The Libyan coast guard managed to rescue around 200 people, who have been sent to a detention facility in Sabratha, west of Tripoli. The migrants are believed to be from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco and Bangladesh.
In an earlier incident, the Swedish navy ship Poseidon had found the bodies of 51 migrants dead due to suffocation below the deck of a boat off Libya's coast. Poseidon was already engaged in rescuing 130 migrants from a raft when it got a call to assist a nearby wooden vessel.
Zuwara, Libya's most western town located near the Tunisian border, is a major launchpad for smugglers who ship out migrants who are desperate to flee the conflict and poverty and seek shelter in Italy.
More than 2,300 deaths have already been reported so far this year in their attempts to reach Europe by sea. The corresponding figure was 3,279 in the past 12 months, as per the International Organisation for Migration. Thousands of migrants and refugees are travelling daily between Greece to Hungary hoping for a better life in the European Union.
(Image courtesy wikiimediacommons.org)


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Ignoring threats from Kalashnikov wielding gunmen, Italian coastguard rescues 2000 migrants

#mediterranean #migrants #libyancoast #italy #UNHCR It was a major rescue operation undertaken by the Italian coastguard when it managed to rescue over 2,000 Mediterranean migrants off the Libyan coast as reported in bbc.com dated 15 February 2015. At the time of rescue, the search teams were threatened by Kalashnikov-wielding men. They had approached in a speedboat from Libya.
This rescue effort involved a plane, four coastguard ships, two tugboats and a navy vessel and, as informed by local media, the migrants were crammed into 12 boats – they have, since, been shifted to Italy.
It may be recalled that only last week, at least 300 migrants met a watery grave in the Mediterranean Sea. They were travelling in dinghies and ran into trouble when they faced stormy weather after leaving the coast of Libya. In between, another 600 migrants were rescued about 50 miles off the coast of the North African country.
Statistics of UNHCR reveal that almost 3,500 people died while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea and land in Europe in 2014. Such a large number of casualties makes this sea crossing the most dangerous one for migrants who are attempting to enter the European Union. Of course, during the same period, more than 200,000 people have been rescued also.