Scores of passengers are feared dead as a boat carrying around 250 African emigrants to Europe capsized along the Libyan coast Sunday, the Libyan navy said.
According to Libyan navy spokesman Ayub Qassem, the boat sank near Tajoura, around 9 miles east of capital Tripoli, and only 26 passengers have been saved so far. "There are so many dead bodies floating in the sea," he told Reuters.
Qassem said that the coast guard did not have the required equipment, making the search more difficult. He added that the emigrants were mostly Africans.
Last month, at least 200 illegal migrants from Africa were lost at sea off Tripoli. Authorities said around 170 people were reported missing after they rescued 16 people and recovered 15 bodies. Libya coast guard official Abdellatif Mohammed Ibrahim told Agence France-Presse then that the coast guards was under-equipped and had just one patrol boat to search the survivors. The emigrants were mostly from Eritrea and Somalia.
The Libyan coast guard being under-equipped for such a situation remains a concern, as hordes of Africans try to illegally sneak into Europe, mainly Italy, because of the political tensions in their countries. The coast guard in Libya mostly relies on fishing boats and tugboats it borrows from the oil ministry, according to Reuters.
According to the Italian government, at least 100,000 migrants reached Italian shores to date in 2014. Frontex, the European Union border manager, said Aug. 12 that the number of migrants entering Italy via boats spiked by 500 percent in the first half of the year.
