Four Rescued After Boat With 110 Migrants Sinks Off Libyan Coast
MEP: A boat with 110 migrants onboard capsized in the frigid waters off Libya on Saturday and only four survivors have been rescued, AP reported, citing aid workers.
This marks the worst such shipwreck incident so far this year, following a record death toll of some 5,000 people in 2016.
A spokesman for the coastguard said that 13 bodies had so far been recovered from the boat, which capsized around 50 kilometers. Italian, Spanish, and French naval and merchant vessels as well as a plane and a helicopter were involved in rescue operations, the spokesman added.
On Friday, around 550 refugees and migrants were picked up from four inflatable dinghies by Italian coastguard vessels, an Italian naval ship, an NGO boat and a merchant vessel.
It is unclear what the nationalities of the migrants involved are.
Some 13 people died in the first 10 days of 2017 attempting to cross the Mediterranean, with 1,159 migrants getting to the coast, the International Organization of Migration (IOM), has said, as cited by AP.
According to the Italian interior ministry, over 180,000 refugees and migrants landed in Italy last year, an annual record.
