Thread: Scores of migrants missing off Libyan coast

Scores of migrants missing off Libyan coast

AFRICA

Sunday 15 January 2017 - 10:19am



File: The Italian navy searched for a boat that capsized about 50km north of the Libyan
coast with 170 people, most migrants, on board. Photo: AFP / Marina Militare





ROME - The Italian coastguard said on Saturday nearly 100 people were missing after a boat transporting migrants sank off the Libyan coast.

"The bodies of eight people have been recovered. Four people have been saved, and they say 107 migrants were onboard the boat in all," the agency's press office said.

Search operations continued after nightfall in poor weather and sea conditions, it said.

A French warship, patrolling under the EU's Frontex border operation, picked up the survivors and two merchant ships were heading for the area, located about 50 kilometres north of the Libyan coast.
A Frontex plane and an Italian naval helicopter also joined the operation.

On Friday, about 550 migrants were picked up from four inflatable dinghies by Italian coastguard vessels, an Italian naval ship, an NGO boat and a merchant vessel.

In recent years Italy has been on the front line of migration across the Mediterranean and has been pushing for agreements with governments in North Africa to facilitate returns.

People-smugglers have exploited the chaos in Libya since the 2011 uprising -- which overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi -- to traffic migrants to Italy 300km away.

According to the Italian interior ministry, more than 180,000 migrants landed in Italy last year, an annual record.

The UN has said more than 5,000 people died in 2016 trying to cross the Mediterranean, most of them on the Libya-Italy route.

In another incident, the bodies of six migrants were found washed up on beaches near Algeciras, the port on the southern tip of Spain near Gibraltar, the Spanish sea rescue service said on Saturday.
The six were all men, apparently from sub-Saharan Africa.


Scores of migrants missing off Libyan coast

Migrants have to stay put in their own countries. They have to figure out a different way than running or fleeing whatever it is they're afraid of or want to leave to solve the problems in their nations. The chaos, risk and damage they cause for other countries is not justified.

So put barges in the water...apprehend them...process them and immediately TOW THEM BACK to whatever shore they came from.

Stop rescuing these people, tow them back, and they will stop paying the human smugglers.