By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 28 August 2015:
Those taking part in an angry Zuwara demonstration against people smugglers today did not know . . .[restrict]at the time that among the bodies of the hundreds of migrants just washed up on the Libyan coast was a family of four from Benghazi.
It emerged this evening that the family, a husband and wife and their two children, had been on one of the ill-fated vessels that set from fro, Zuwara in search of asylum in Europe.
The Zuwara demonstration, although only numbering a few dozen protestors, is being seen as a potential game changer in Libyan public opinion. Given that the Libyan Red Crescent is now working overtime picking up bodies from beaches, the full horror of the migrant crisis is being driven home.
Despite the recent hot weather, the sea state has been challenging, leading to the capsizing of heavily overloaded rubber rafts that are reportedly being imported from Turkey and Italy. Some, but not all, of the migrants thrown into the water have been rescued by vessels from the EU Frontex force operating well within Libyan territorial waters.
In the last 48 hours at least 270 migrants have perished. Two days ago, some 52 were found suffocated in the hold of a trawler by the Swedish patrol vessel Poseidon which rescued 230 migrants on the same vessel. The other dead have been pulled from the sea or washed up on Libyan coasts.
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