Around 61 migrants were missing and presumed dead after their boat sank off Libya’s coast, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Saturday, in the latest migrant tragedy off North Africa.
The military obtained “information about a vessel that was sinking off the coast of Tripoli while it was being used for illegal people smuggling,” the army said in a statement, referring to a city in north Lebanon.
Naval forces were able to “rescue 51 people aboard, including two Palestinians and 49 Syrians,” the statement added.
The Lebanese Red Cross helped provide assistance to those rescued, according to the statement, which did not specify where the boat was headed.
Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees leaving by boat from Lebanon are generally seeking a better life in Europe, and often head for the east Mediterranean island of Cyprus, less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) away.
Lebanon hosts around two million Syrians, authorities say, while some 800,000 are registered with the United Nations — the world’s highest number of refugees per capita.
Lebanon’s economy collapsed in late 2019, turning the country into a launchpad for migrants. Authorities often announce they have thwarted smuggling operations by sea, or the arrest of both smugglers and would-be migrants.
Lebanese nationals have also been making the treacherous voyage toward Europe alongside Syrians fleeing war and economic woes in their country, as well as Palestinian refugees.
On December 1, Lebanon’s army said it disrupted a smuggling operation that saw 110 people, mostly from Syria, attempting to leave the country by sea.
Sunday’s rescue comes amid weeks of conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with skirmishes also across the Lebanon-Israel border, mainly between the Israeli army and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, a Hamas ally.
The “large number of migrants” are believed to have died because of high waves which swamped their vessel after it left from Zuwara, on Libya’s northwest coast, the IOM’s Libya office said in a statement to AFP.
Citing survivors, it said there were about 86 migrants aboard.
Libya and Tunisia are principal departure points for migrants risking dangerous sea voyages in hopes of reaching Europe, via Italy.
In the latest incident most of the victims — who included women and children — were from Nigeria, Gambia and other African countries, the IOM office said, adding that 25 people were rescued and transferred to a Libyan detention center.
An IOM team “provided medical support” and the survivors are all in good condition, the IOM office said.
Flavio Di Giacomo, an IOM spokesperson, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that more than 2,250 people died this year on the central Mediterranean migrant route, a “dramatic figure which demonstrates that unfortunately not enough is being done to save lives at sea.”
The Adriana, a fishing boat loaded with 750 people en route from Libya to Italy, went down in international waters off southwest Greece on June 14.
According to survivors, the ship was carrying mainly Syrians, Pakistanis and Egyptians. Only 104 survived and 82 bodies were recovered.
More than 153,000 migrants arrived in Italy this year from Tunisia and Libya, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni won elections last year after vowing to stop illegal migration.
More than a decade of violence in Libya since the overthrow and killing of dictator Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising helped turn the country into a fertile ground for human traffickers who have been accused of abuses ranging from extortion to slavery.
Libya on Tuesday repatriated nearly 1,000 migrants from Egypt and Nigeria who had been staying in the North African country illegally, officials and AFP journalists said.
The 664 Egyptians were to be taken by bus to the Emsaed border post with Egypt, nearly 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) east of Tripoli.
General Mohamad Bardaa, who heads the country’s anti-immigration body affiliated to the interior ministry, said 300 Nigerians were taken to the airport to be flown home.
Libya, plunged into chaos with the ouster and killing in 2011 of long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi, is now ruled by rival administrations in the west and east and has become a hub for illegal migration to Europe.
Migrants seeking to make the perilous sea crossing to Europe from north Africa often fall into the hands of trafficking gangs that extort them for money.
Thousands of people, mostly Egyptians, have also lived illegally in and around the Libyan capital for years, working in agriculture, business and construction.
In similar operations last month, 600 Egyptians were sent home on November 6 and 250 were repatriated to Niger and Chad on November 28.
According to International Organization for Migration figures, there were more than 700,000 migrants — mostly from Niger and Egypt — in Libya between May and June this year.