TRIPOLI: Pakistani citizens were among the 57 migrants whose bodies have been washed ashore after two migrant boats sank in the Mediterranean off different towns in Libya, a coast guard officer and an aid worker said on Tuesday.
One survivor, Bassam Mahmoud from Egypt, said about 80 passengers on one of the boats set off for Europe at around 2 am on Tuesday. There was an argument as the boat sank, he said and added that the man in charge refused to stop.
“We kept fighting until someone caught up with us. The scene was horrific, and some died before me,” he told Reuters.
He said that 11 bodies, including that of a child, were recovered off Qarabulli in Tripoli, said coast guard officer Fathi al-Zayani. The migrants were from Pakistan, Tunisia, Syria and Egypt.
A Red Crescent aid employee in Sabratha in western Tripoli said they had recovered 46 bodies from the beach in the past six days, and were all “illegal migrants” from one boat.
Images were posted online by the Sabratha Red Crescent agency showing bodies in black bags placed at the back of pick-up trucks by the aid workers wearing face masks and gloves. The aid worker said more bodies would be washed up in the coming days.
The International Organization for Migration said that 441 refugees and migrants drowned in early 2023 attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe, the most deaths in the last six years over three months.
A decade after overthrowing Muammar Gddafi in the NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya became the central departure point for predominantly African migrants trying to cross to Europe. But Tunisia has since taken over from Libya as the most famous departure point.
Mediterranean Sea
Italy rescued 47 boats carrying around 1,600 migrants in the central Mediterranean Sea in the previous two days and brought them ashore to the island of Lampedusa.
Italy has offered Tunisia money in exchange for political and economic reforms as European Union foreign ministers explained how to respond to growing instability in the African country.
