ABOARD GEO BARENTS – Libya’s Coast Guard intercepted a boat carrying about 500 migrants bound for Europe off the country’s coast on Sunday, the U. N. refugee firm said.
It is the latest interception at sea amid a surge in crossings and attempts to cross from the North African country to European shores in recent months. He arrived here two days after a major crackdown on migrants in a western Libyan city that led to the raid of at least 4,000 migrants.
Libya has the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, hoping for a better life in Europe. dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Human smugglers have benefited from the chaos in the oil-rich country and trafficked migrants across the country’s long border with six nations, then embarked desperate migrants onto rubber boats ill-equipped for quick travel on the dangerous central Mediterranean route.
Migrants from Sunday’s interception were disembarked at an oil refinery in the western city of Zawiya, a major departure point for migrants, according to the U. N. refugee firm UNHCR. They come with Sudanese, Somalis, Bengalis and Syrians, he said.
Most likely, the migrants were taken to a detention center, as the Libyan government does with intercepted migrants.
On Saturday, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted about 90 migrants, adding 8 and 3 children, and returned them to Tripoli, the UN firm said. The Coast Guard also recovered the bodies of two migrants, while another 40 remain missing at sea. said the firm.
There has been an increase in crossings and attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea to succeed on European soil. So far this year, some 44,000 more people have managed to cross European shores across the central Mediterranean from Tunisia and Lithrougha.
As of Sept. 25, more than 25,000 people had been intercepted this year through the EU-trained and supplied Lithroughan Coast Guard and returned to the war-torn country, according to the U. N. migration agency.
More than 1,100 migrants have been reported dead or presumed dead off Libya in the first months of 2021.
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