TRIPOLI, April 13 (Reuters) – Libya’s coastguard has rescued
89 sub-Saharan African migrants who had been drifting in a boat
for five days and had to dump the bodies of five people who died
on the journey overboard, the state news agency said on
Saturday.
The Libyan authorities were alerted by a fisherman that the
boat was adrift off the western port of Zawiyah, naval official
Colonel Ayub Omar Gacem was quoted as saying by the Libyan news
agency LANA.
“Many of them were taken to hospital when they were brought
to shore, the rest were provided with food and medicine on the
spot,” Ayoub was quoted as saying.
The migrants told their rescuers that five people had died
and they had disposed of their bodies at sea.
North Africa is a launchpoint for maritime migration to
southern Europe, with Italy the main destination. Thousands of
people have been killed attempting the dangerous crossing in
overcrowded and frequently unsafe vessels.
Ayoub said this was the second such incident in two weeks
after Libya’s coastguard saved another 34 people, including
women and children, off the west coast.
On Friday, the Italian coastguard said it had rescued almost
500 migrants crammed into five small inflatable boats off the
Sicilian coast in the Mediterranean Sea after receiving distress
calls overnight.
Most of the migrants were taken to Lampedusa, a tiny island
south of Sicily that receives thousands of immigrants each year.
Improved spring weather conditions have increased the
numbers trying to make the treacherous journey across the
Mediterranean, but thousands have died due to shipwrecks, harsh
conditions and a lack of food and water.
An estimated 1,500 migrants lost their lives in the
Mediterranean in 2011, many of them trying to escape the turmoil
caused by the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa, according
to Human Rights Watch. It estimated the death toll in 2012 at
more than 300.
(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Jon Hemming)
