The number of people who died trying to cross the Central Mediterranean Sea this year mounted up to 970 people, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.
The deadly central Mediterranean killed at least 57 migrants, after their boat, which took off east Tripoli, capsized off of Libya’s shore. At least 20 women and two toddlers are missing, the IOM told reporters in Geneva.
Numbers of Central Mediterranean departures, interceptions and arrivals increased this year, according to the IOM. Most deaths happening in the Mediterranean happen in the central Mediterranean, one of the world’s most hazardous routes.
In the first half of 2021 alone, at least 1,113 people died crossing the Mediterranean, three times the figure recorded in the same period of 2020, and , according to the IOM.
Most of these deaths are recorded off of Libya’s shore, which transformed into a dominant transit point for migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
A decade’s long war drove the country into disarray after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Political frictions and militia presence exacerbated the worsening conditions of the country’s seven million population and left migrants under dire human conditions in detention centers.
Last October, a new transitional government took power, driving the country slowly out of political deadlock and setting in motion the reemergence of the oil rich country out of war.
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.