More than 60 people, including women and children, drowned off the coast of Libya when a boat carrying dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe capsized, the UN Migration Agency announced.
The shipwreck is the latest tragedy in that part of the Mediterranean Sea, a notoriously dangerous route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe that has killed thousands.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced that there were 86 migrants on board, and 61 migrants drowned when the ship overturned in high waves near the town of Zuwara on the west coast of Libya.
The organization refers to the statements of survivors in what it called a dramatic shipwreck.
“The Central Mediterranean remains one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world,” the World Organization for Migration said on social network X.
In recent years, Libya has become the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country fell into chaos after the rebellion supported by NATO, in which Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011.
Libya is the main starting point for migrants trying to reach European shores across the dangerous central Mediterranean. According to IOM spokesman Flavio di Giacomo, more than 2,250 people died on that route this year.
“It is a dramatic figure that unfortunately shows that not enough is being done to save lives at sea,” Giacomo wrote on the X network, Beta writes.
