More than 180 migrants lost 50kms off the coast of Libya

More than 180 migrants attempting to cross from Libya to Italy are presumed dead in the Mediterranean after their boat capsized on Saturday, 14 January.

Only four of the more than 180 migrants were rescued on Saturday on the first day of the rescue. After talking to the two Eritreans and two Ethiopians who were rescued more details about the number of people on board and the conditions that led to its sinking have emerged.

The traumatized and exhausted one woman and three men arrived in the Sicilian port of Trapani on Monday morning. The survivors said that the boat had left Libya on Friday.

“They said there were an estimated 180 people on board of a barge,” Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for IOM-Rome. “The engine broke down some five hours after setting sail from an unspecific location in Libya, and the boat started slowly to take on water and to sink, some 30 nautical miles off Libya.”

“One of the men told us he was travelling with his wife, who did not survive. He also tried desperately to save another woman, yet she also drowned after some hours in the waters,” Di Giacomo added.

The survivors also said that there were a number of children on board, none of whom survived. All of the passengers on the boat are thought to have originated from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.

The rescue operations continued as an Italian naval and merchant vessel as well as a plane and a helicopter later joined a French warship, which had picked up the survivors, patrolling under the EU’s Frontex border operations, but they found no more survivors.

This incident is the worst tragedy so far this year, which has already seen more than 219 deaths at sea, more than two times the 91 people who died in the Mediterranean in the first two weeks of 2016. Although the death toll has risen this year, less than 2,900 people have reached Europe up to the 17^th of January this year, down by more than 80% from last year’s 24,000 people who arrived within the first 14 days of January.  Most of the migrants who have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year are from Eritrea and Nigeria.

The central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy is becoming more and more dangerous as migrant traffic has shifted to North Africa after the closing of the Aegean route early last year. Operations by European navies to combat human smuggling and trafficking have caused smugglers to use smaller and less seaworthy boats with more people onboard. Smugglers have also begun sending many boats simultaneously to avoid capture, which has made rescue efforts harder and caused more deaths.

Last year, most of the 5,079 people who died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe perished in the waters between Libya and Italy, where they drowned, were crushed or suffocated in the overcrowded boats, or simply succumbed to thirst and hunger when stranded at sea. Poorly made inflatable rubber dinghies carrying up to 150 people easily overturn and capsize, burst under the pressure, or water collecting inside the boats causes passengers to drown as others trying to move to safety crush their fellow passengers. Fuel leaks often give off deadly fumes, which can also suffocate and kill the passengers.

Libyan authorities do not routinely release figures about bodies that wash up on the country’s shores and the actual number of deaths in the Mediterranean is estimated to be much higher than the reported number of victims.