More than 200 migrants are missing and presumed dead after 21 bodies were recovered following a violent storm off Libya's Mediterranean coast.
Laurence Hart, chief of mission in Tripoli for the International Organisation for Migration, said ‘A boat with 257 migrants on board sank on Sunday off the coast of Libya.'
‘Twenty-three people were saved and 21 bodies were retrieved,’ he said.
Libyan coastguards were also searching for two other boats, but it is not yet known if they were fishing boats or had migrants on board.
In Geneva, the UN High Commission for Refugees said Egyptians, Tunisians and Africans were on boats that that were wrecked some 30km off Libya.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said ‘Details are still sketchy, but reports indicate a number of vessels carrying several hundred people set sail from the coast of Libya in the direction of Italy over the last few days.
‘At least one boat reportedly went down and hundreds of people aboard are reported missing.’
First reports of the disaster emerged late yesterday from Egypt, with state news agency MENA quoting foreign ministry official Ahmed Rizq as saying a ship carrying more than 250 illegal migrants had gone down off Libya.
He told MENA that 20 people, including six Egyptians, were saved by Libyan rescue workers, and that the boat had set sail from Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, on Sunday morning.
Yesterday, a Libyan interior ministry source said an Italian tanker rescued 350 illegal migrants after their vessel ran into trouble.
A ship carrying illegal migrants bound for Europe also sank off Libya on Sunday, with 21 people drowning and an unknown number of people missing, the source added.
Italy and Libya are to launch joint sea patrols aimed at stopping the illegal traffic.
