Bodies of at least 74 migrants wash ashore in western Libya

  21 February 2017    Read: 913
Bodies of at least 74 migrants wash ashore in western Libya
Scores of bodies, presumed to be African migrants, have washed ashore on Libya’s Mediterranean coast in the western city of Zawiya.
At least 74 bodies were found on the beach on Tuesday morning. The circumstances of the drowning was unknown, a spokesman for Libya’s Red Crescent spokesman said.

There was no sign of a wrecked boat or vessel in which the migrants may have been travelling.

The agency tweeted photographs of dozens of bodies in white and black body bags, lined up on the shore.

Red Crescent spokesman Mohammed al-Misrati said the local authorities would take the bodies to a cemetery in Tripoli that caters for unidentified bodies.

Last week, Fabrice Leggeri, the director of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, said there were a record number of drowning deaths in 2016 on the Libya-Italy people-smuggling route across the Mediterranean.

According to Leggeri, there were 4.579 recorded migrant deaths on that route last year, although the real figure could be much higher due to the number of deaths that go unrecorded. There were 2,869 recorded deaths in 2015 and 3,161 in 2014.

There is little sign that the surge in the number of drownings is slowing, even during the usually quieter winter months. There were 228 recorded deaths in January – by far the biggest monthly toll in recent years. Leggeri blamed poor vessels for the high death rate.

The post-Gaddafi civil turmoil engulfing Libya has exacerbated the situation for thousands of migrants, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa who are seeking to escape poverty and find a better life in Europe.

Libya is divided by competing governments and effectively run by militias, many of which profit from smuggling and human trafficking.

Rights groups have documented cases of torture, rape, and forced labour in trafficking operations that are thriving in Libya’s civil chaos.

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