Forty-two people were presumed dead after a rubber boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Libya this month, the International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday. Many of them were part of a growing number of refugees who are fleeing the brutal conflict in Sudan, the agency said.
The boat had left the Libyan port city of Zuwarah on Nov. 3 with 49 migrants onboard and capsized just six hours later after large waves caused the boat’s engines to fail, the agency said in a statement.
A handful of survivors drifted at sea for nearly six days until the Libyan Coast Guard reached them last week, according to the agency, which warned that this year’s death toll on the Mediterranean crossing had already surpassed 1,000 people.
“This is unfortunately a continuation of every single year since 2014 when we began collecting data,” said Julia Black, who leads the agency’s Missing Migrants Project, which documents deaths and those who go missing each year.
She called it a “terrible milestone,” noting that the central Mediterranean crossing from North Africa to southern Europe is one of the deadliest sea routes for migrants.
Over 33,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean over the past 11 years, according to the Missing Migrants Project, as governments on both sides of the Mediterranean struggle to stem the flow of migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East attempting to reach Europe. Last month, 18 people drowned in a similar shipwreck off the coast of Libya; in August, at least 27 drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
For the shipwreck announced on Wednesday, its relatively short distance from the coast showed that the boat did not get far on its journey, Ms. Black said. Two women were among the missing, she said, and the Libyan Red Crescent has not found any bodies so far.
The survivors, seven men, were given emergency medical treatment before Libyan authorities transferred them to a detention center in Tripoli, Ms. Black said.
Eight of those presumed dead were from Somalia, three from Cameroon and two from Nigeria, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Most of the presumed victims were fleeing Sudan, a country that has been torn apart by war for more than two years, according to the agency, which said it had seen a sharp rise in the number of Sudanese people risking the perilous Mediterranean crossing in 2025.
So far this year, about 3,600 Sudanese have arrived in Italy, while smaller numbers have landed on the Greek island of Crete, the agency said. The increase, though, is a fraction of the number of Sudanese displaced by the war.
The vast majority of the perilous Mediterranean crossings begin in Libya, where migrants risk exploitation and violence. Libya is also not considered a safe port of disembarkation for migrants, the migration agency said. In the past, human rights advocacy groups have decried the methods used by Libyan authorities to track and deport migrants.
Lynsey Chutel is a Times reporter based in London who covers breaking news in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
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