Over 900 migrants feared dead after capsized Mediterranean boat

World Today

Greece Migrants DrownA helicopter flies over the wreckage of a boat which was carrying dozens of migrants in the eastern Aegean island of Rhodes, Greece on Monday, April 20, 2015 .Greek authorities said that at least three people have died, including a child, after a wooden boat carrying tens of migrants ran aground off the island of Rhodes. (AP Photo//Nikolas Nanev)

More than 900 migrants are feared dead after an overcrowded boat capsized off the coast of Libya Sunday. It’s said to be the worst maritime disaster in the Mediterranean sea according to European immigration authorities.

More details:

  • Italy’s coast guard said only 28 people survived the wreck and 24 bodies were recovered from the waters around the accident site, about 60 miles (about 96 km) off the Libyan coast.
  • A survivor’s testimonies suggested there were about 950 people, far more than the initially estimated 700, on board the 20-meter fishing boat according to an Italian court official.
  • The victims include at least 200 women and some 50 children.

Sources include Reuters and the Associated Press.


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Highlights:

  • It was four years ago when western powers intervened in the Libyan civil war to oust Moammar Gaddafi.
  • Libya’s coast and its proximity to Europe have become the favored departure place for migrants wanting to get away and human traffickers who make their living off those seeking freedom at the risk of drowning.
  • According to the International Office of Migration, of those who died at sea in the first nine months last year- more than 30 percent were from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa; 23 percent from the Middle East and North Africa, especially Syria, as well as Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine.