A UN immigration official said that over 160 people drowned in two different shipwrecks off the coast of Libya in the past week. The death toll is a recent disaster in the Mediterranean, involving refugees seeking a better life. Europe.
Safa Msehli, Spokesperson of the International Counter-Terrorism Organization migrant The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that after their wooden boat capsized on Friday, at least 102 people were reported dead and at least 8 people were rescued and returned to shore.
The second shipwreck happened on Saturday. Mseli said that the Libyan Coast Guard found at least 62 bodies. She added that on the same day, the Coast Guard intercepted a third wooden boat carrying at least 210 refugees.
Mselli said these deaths brought the total number of drowning on the Mediterranean Sea Route this year to approximately 1,500.
In recent months, as the authorities have accelerated the lethal suppression of refugees from Tripoli in the capital, border crossings and attempted crossings from Libya have proliferated.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration, approximately 31,500 people were intercepted and returned to Libya in 2021, compared with nearly 11,900 in the previous year. According to the UN agency, approximately 980 refugees will die or presumably die in 2020.
Libya has become a major transit point for people fleeing war and poverty Africa And the Middle East. In 2011, the NATO-backed uprising overthrew and killed its long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi, after which the oil-rich country fell into chaos.
Human traffickers benefited from the chaos in this oil-rich country and smuggled refugees through the country’s long border with six other countries. They loaded desperate people into crudely equipped rubber boats, and then set out to venture across the dangerous Mediterranean.
The deportees were taken to detention centers full of abuse, including forced labor, beating, rape and torture. The abuse is often accompanied by efforts to extort the family members for money before they are allowed to leave Libya on the trafficker’s boat.
Investigators commissioned by the United Nations stated in October that torture and abuse of refugees in Libya may constitute a crime against humanity.
