UN migration agency: 74 drowned after ship sank near Libya

At least 74 migrants drowned after their Europe-bound ship capsized off the coast of Libya on Thursday, the UN migration agency said, in the latest in a series of at least eight shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean since last month.

The ship was carrying more than 120 migrants, including women and children, when it sank off the coast of the Libyan port of al-Khums, the International Organization for Migration said. Only 47 people were rescued by the Libyan coastguard and fishermen and brought to shore.

So far, 31 bodies have been recovered as the search for the remaining victims continued, the IOM added.

In the years since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, war-torn Libya has become the dominant transit point for migrants hoping to reach Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Smugglers often pack desperate families into poorly equipped rubber dinghies that stagnate and wreck along the dangerous central Mediterranean route. At least 20,000 people have died in those waters since 2014, according to the IOM.

“The increasing loss of life in the Mediterranean is a manifestation of the inability of States to take decisive action to redistribute much-needed dedicated search and rescue capacity at the world’s deadliest maritime crossing,” said Federico Soda, Head of IOM in Libya Mission.

On Tuesday, 13 African migrants, including three women and a child, had drowned in a similar shipwreck off the Libyan coast.

IOM said it had noticed a recent increase in the number of departures from Libyan shores, with more than 780 arrivals in Italy since early October. More than 11,000 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya, where they are at risk of human rights violations and detention, the IOM statement read.

“IOM maintains that Libya is not a safe harbor for return and reiterates its call to the international community and the European Union to take urgent and concrete measures to end the cycle of return and exploitation.