More than 75 people were feared of death after their boat capsized in a stormy sea trying to reach the coast of Libya Europe According to the United Nations, this is one of the deadliest shipwrecks this year.
Fifteen survivors were rescued by local fishermen and taken to the port of Zuwara in northwestern Libya. They said that when the accident happened on November 17, there were about 92 people on board.Most of the dead were from sub-Saharan regions Africa.
According to rescuers, human smugglers sent hundreds of people to sea this fall, regardless of the stormy weather. Many journeys ended in tragedy.
“In November this year, despite the bad weather, more and more migrants departed from Libya for Europe,” said Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for Italy’s international organization to the United Nations. migrant (International Organization for Migration). “Even if the sea is calm, these departures are dangerous, let alone in the weeks when the storm hits the central Mediterranean. This is why it is more important than ever to respond to calls for help immediately. Rescue operations A delay of up to five minutes may affect the life and death of these people.”
Last week, 10 people were found dead on the lower deck Heavily crowded wooden boat According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), near the coast of Libya.
According to survivors rescued by the Geo Barents, a vessel chartered by the charity, the deceased suffocated after 13 hours on the narrow lower deck, where there was a strong smell of fuel.
Abdoulaye was one of the last survivors to leave the ship. Before MSF rescuers took his arm and helped him board the rescue lifeboat, he had little time to understand what happened to his companion.
“Let me see their bodies,” he told the team. “These are my brothers. We come from the same place, we walked Libya Together. I need to tell their family that they are dead. Please let me see them. “
Some people have to identify the bodies of younger brothers or friends who died in front of them a few hours ago.
“This is both terrifying and infuriating. This is another maritime tragedy that could have been avoided,” said Fulvia Conte, the deputy head of the MSF search and rescue team in the Barents Sea.
So far this year, an estimated 1,300 people have died or disappeared while trying to cross the central Mediterranean. In April, More than 120 people were killed in an accident.
This fall, since the beginning of October, nearly 170 people from Africa and the Middle East died from waves or cold on the main immigration routes trying to reach Europe.
Alarm Phone, a Mediterranean rescue hotline run by volunteers, stated that the recent shipwreck was “a consequence of the deadly European immigration policy, which did its best to prevent people from reaching Europe, but did not take any measures to prevent the continued large-scale drowning at its borders.” .
It added: “It’s only a matter of time before we hear about the next shipwreck and subsequent shipwrecks. We need a radical political change, otherwise the Mediterranean will remain a mobile cemetery.”
