Up to 200 individuals likely seeking humanitarian relief in Europe may have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea near western Libya on Thursday, according to various media reports. Libyan officials believe that an unseaworthy fishing vessel sank off the port city of Zuwara, Libya, a well-known area used for people to board fishing vessels and dinghies trying to reach Europe.
Many of the 400 individuals aboard the vessel appeared to have been trapped in the cargo hold when the boat capsized. By late Thursday evening, the Libyan coast guard had rescued 201 people. BBC also reported that a smaller boat carrying about 100 people may have capsized earlier on Thursday.
Claudio Lavanga, an Al Jazeera reporter based in Rome, said to the publication, “Sometimes they die of suffocation and sometimes they drown because they can’t escape after the boat capsizes… These are people who don’t have the money to pay for a ‘deck’ position.”
More than 300,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea this year, including almost 200,000 people who traveled to Greece and 110,000 who traveled to Italy, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. But at least 2,500 people have died or gone missing as they made the often treacherous trip to Europe.
Zuwara, Libya has become a major departure point for individuals fleeing chaos in Syria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In the latest capsized boat incident, many of the individuals came from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco, and Bangladesh.
Washed-up bodies in this area appear be be unceasing. Local Libyan officials are unequipped to handle the bodies, leaving volunteers from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to train local people to handle the situation. Nonetheless, smugglers continue to launch unseaworthy vessels from this spot. Dozens of Zuwara residents protested the smuggling this week, holding signs with pictures of corpses and slogans that read “Illegal immigration is mass murder.”
Here are some of the most heartbreaking photos of the reality that is happening in Zuwara (content note: some readers may find these photos disturbing):
