A boat accident has killed 170 African migrants travelling to Tripoli in search for better way of life.
According to Libyan coastguard officials, today a boat carrying 170 illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa was feared lost at sea off the capital Tripoli.
“We are looking for 170 African passengers on a wooden boat that has foundered off the Guarakouzi area” some 60 kilometres (35 miles) east of Tripoli, coastguard official Abdellatif Mohammed Ibrahim told AFP.
“A few miles off the coast, we found the remains of a wooden boat which had had some 200 migrants on board,” he said.
“We managed to save 16 people and recovered 15 bodies, but the search continues for some 170 people who disappeared at sea,” Ibrahim told AFP.
He said the coastguard was lacking in resources, and had only one patrol boat to search for the missing people.
An AFP journalist reported seeing the body of a child who was nevertheless wearing a life-jacket.
The coastguard official was unable to give any firm details of the nationalities of the victims or survivors, but added: “It seems that among them are Somalis and Eritreans.”
On Thursday, Tunisian fishermen rescued 75 migrants who had been drifting at sea for five days after leaving Libya aboard an inflatable in an attempt to reach Italy.
The migrants were in a state of extreme fatigue by the time they made landfall in Zarzis, in southern Tunisia, where emergency services took charge of them, an AFP correspondent reported.
Earlier this month, Tunisian coastguards intercepted 90 African migrants whose makeshift boat heading from Libya for the Italian island of Lampedusa broke down off Zarzis.
Would-be immigrants often attempt the crossing from Libya or Tunisia to Lampedusa in rickety boats.
On August 12, EU border agency Frontex said the number of boat migrants arriving in Italy soared 500 percent in the first half of the year, already topping a 2011 record during the Arab Spring uprisings.
The Warsaw-based agency said 78,300 people had arrived in the European Union by the end of July via the hazardous Mediterranean route from Libya to mainly Italy, but also Malta.
“Libya is highly unstable as it is now, and that means that the people-smuggling networks are flourishing,” Frontex spokeswoman Izabella Cooper told AFP. [AFP]
Shame to u african leaders. Killing ur citizens to make money. Have u ever heard of brazilian citizens as poor as dat country is dat they are migrating to africa for greener pasture? Apart from those losers lebanese pple, I have not seen.
Posted: at 23-08-2014 09:45 AM (10 years ago) | Addicted Hero
odprince at 23-08-2014 11:30 AM (10 years ago) (m)
AFRICAN LEADERS ARE THE PROBLEM WHY THE PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING,,LOOK AT NIGERIA FOR EXAMPLE.,IF NOT THE PROBLEM AND GREED OF THE ABOKI,THE HAUSA'S SINCE 1960,EVERY NIGERIAN SHOULD BE RECEIVING SALARY EVERY MONTH,BECAUSE WE HAVE THE MONEY,HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT GET FROM ABACHA???BILLIONS OF NIGERIA AND WE AS NIGERIANS WE ARE JUST 170 MILLION PEOPLE,WHICH MEANS THAT EACH PERSON CAN GET 5-10 MILLION NAIRA EACH,BUT OBASANJO AND THE HAUSA'S STEAL ALL THE MONEY....MAY THUNDER FIRE THE AFRICAN LEADERS
Posted: at 23-08-2014 11:30 AM (10 years ago) | Gistmaniac
AFRICAN LEADERS ARE THE PROBLEM WHY THE PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING,,LOOK AT NIGERIA FOR EXAMPLE.,IF NOT THE PROBLEM AND GREED OF THE ABOKI,THE HAUSA'S SINCE 1960,EVERY NIGERIAN SHOULD BE RECEIVING SALARY EVERY MONTH,BECAUSE WE HAVE THE MONEY,HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT GET FROM ABACHA???BILLIONS OF NIGERIA AND WE AS NIGERIANS WE ARE JUST 170 MILLION PEOPLE,WHICH MEANS THAT EACH PERSON CAN GET 5-10 MILLION NAIRA EACH,BUT OBASANJO AND THE HAUSA'S STEAL ALL THE MONEY....MAY THUNDER FIRE THE AFRICAN LEADERS
MY MAN YOU CAN TELL THEM THIS AGAIN, phyuk ALL THE AFRICAN'S LEADERS FOOLS.
Posted: at 23-08-2014 12:31 PM (10 years ago) | Upcoming
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