Bad weather caused boat to sink
2009-04-01 21:29
Tripoli - Bad weather and passenger panic
caused the deadly sinking of a smugglers' boat off Libya this
week, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on
Wednesday.
Survivors told IOM staff that the smuggler, an Egyptian
national, was among those who drowned when the boat capsized
three hours after it left Janzour, 15km west of
Tripoli, on Monday.
"The migrants said they had survived because they had stayed
at the back of the boat, the only part to have stayed afloat,"
the IOM said in a statement, which said there were 257 people on
board the ship, of whom 70 were women and two were children.
About 20 migrants survived the accident, including one
woman, it said. Many survivors had kidney problems after having
drunk sea water, but otherwise appeared in good health.
Earlier on Wednesday, Libyan authorities said they recovered
the bodies of 100 of the migrants trying to reach Europe.
"Seventy-seven bodies of the migrants washed up in the beach
west of Tripoli late on Tuesday and 23 more bodies were found
between Sunday night and Tuesday," an official told Reuters.
Estimates of the total number aboard the ship vary. Libyan
officials believe there were 365 people attempting the journey
on the boat that was supposed to hold only 75.
The migrants were Somalis, Nigerians, Eritreans, Kurds,
Algerians, Moroccans, Palestinians and Tunisians, according to
the officials. The ill-fated ship was one of four migrant boats
which had sailed from Libya between Saturday and Sunday,
apparently heading to Italy.
More than a million African migrants
Libyan coastguards had rescued 350 migrants, many of them
women and children, after their boat broke down on Sunday near a
Libyan offshore oilfield, they said.
"As for the fate of the two remaining boats, we have
information that one had reached Italy and the latest
information we had about the other boat was it had left Libyan
waters and was spotted close to Malta," a Libyan official said.
There are between 1 million and 1.5 million African migrants
in Libya, according to the IOM.
Libya is both a transit and a destination country for
migrants. Most take odd jobs to gather enough money to pay
smugglers for the risky journey to Italy.
IOM and Libyan officials say there appears to have been a
surge in the number of people using smugglers to leave North
Africa, prompted by fears that Libya and Italy would step up a
crackdown on illegal migration next month.
Tripoli and Rome have reached an agreement on joint sea
patrols to try to stem the flow of illegal migrants. The accord
becomes effective on May 15.