Benghazi, March 02 (Darfur24)
The Libyan Red Crescent said Monday that five migrants have died and eight remain missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tobruk in eastern Libya.
Hamza Al-Farjani, head of the Red Crescent’s Derna branch, said rescue teams recovered five bodies from the area between Al-Tamimi and Umm Al-Razm, about 110 kilometers from Tobruk. He added that search operations are ongoing.
Al-Farjani said 20 migrants were rescued, including 12 Sudanese, four Somalis, and four Egyptians.
On Sunday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced the death of four migrants and the disappearance of 10 others after a boat carrying 31 people sank off Tobruk’s coast.
Mohammed Abdel Karim, a relative of one of the Sudanese victims, told Darfur24 that his relative, Abdullah Suleiman Hussein, known as “Kusha,” was among those who died in the incident. He said Hussein, about 18 years old and originally from Kutum in North Darfur, had traveled to Libya months earlier in hopes of reaching Europe.
According to Abdel Karim, the family learned of his death through Sudanese survivors, and his body was transferred to a hospital in Tobruk.
The incident is the latest in a series of deadly shipwrecks involving migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean from eastern Libya.
Last December, about 74 refugees, most of them Sudanese, died while attempting to reach Europe, with only 13 survivors and dozens still missing, according to UNHCR in Libya. In early November, 42 people died, including 29 Sudanese refugees, while seven survived after another boat capsized. In October, 18 people died, and 91 were rescued, including children, according to the Libyan Coast Guard.
According to the latest UNHCR statistics released in January, Libya hosts about 500,000 Sudanese refugees. More than 193,000 reside in the border municipality of Al-Kufra with Sudan, over 80,000 in the capital Tripoli, and around 10,000 in Benghazi. Other cities hosting Sudanese refugees include Misrata (7,248), Zawiya (6,190), Jafara (20,443), Derna (5,642), Tobruk (5,768), and the Green Mountain area (3,822).