By Libya Herald reporters.
Tunis, 15 January 2017:
Despite bad weather, the migrant tide toward Europe increases and more than 100 refugees are feared drowned off the Libyan coast after their boat capsized yesterday. Another eight were confirmed as dead
Flavio Di Giacomo of the International Organisation for Migration said the boat had been carrying 110 migrants and only four were known to have survived. These had been rescued some 50 kilometres off the Libyan coast.
IOM figures show that so far this year arrivals in Italy from Libya had more than doubled from 268 in 2016 to 729 by last Thursday.
This latest in the long list of migrant tragedies comes on the eve of an EU summit in Brussels which will once again try and tackle the flows of migrants from Libya and Turkey.
The Italian government is being condemned for its idea of returning migrants to Libya which is already holding thousand of largely Sub-Saharan Africans in squalid detention centres which appal visitors, such as UNSMIL chief Martin Kobler. Kobler said today that he was deeply shocked at the latest loss of migrant lives.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, one of the Non-Government Organisations involved in collecting people from their frail rubber rafts and decrepit fishing boats has called for an end to the carnage. It said today that despite the winter seas, migrants were still trying to cross. It called for the EU to provide safe passage for them.
The latest migrant disaster meant an French-Italian rescue operation directing naval vessels, planes and aircraft and at least one merchant ship to the area where the migrant craft sank.
Since Friday night, at least 800 people have been rescued from flimsy craft as they attempted to reach the Italian coastline.
