International
Marta Soszynska / Médecins Sans Frontières
Scores of migrants attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe are feared to have drowned after their overcrowded fishing boat capsized off Libya, Italy's coastguard said Wednesday.
Though the rescue operation was ongoing Wednesday evening, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced late in the afternoon that 400 migrants had been rescued so far, with 25 confirmed dead.
Up to 700 people were reportedly on the vessel at the time of the incident. The boat had run into difficulty some 15 nautical miles off Libya and sent out a distress call, picked up by the coast guard in Catania, Sicily.
Two vessels — the Doctors Without Borders ship Dignity I and Irish navy patrol vessel Le Niamh — were immediately dispatched to the scene, but the boat capsized after the migrants all rushed to one side in anticipation of being rescued, the Italian coast guard said.
Irish Capt. Donal Gallagher told The Associated Press that, according to preliminary reports, some 150 migrants were spotted in the water after the smugglers' boat overturned. An Italian military helicopter dropped additional life rafts into the sea, Gallagher said.
Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for IOM, said the boat appeared to have been packed to the brim with migrants, which is consistent with smuggling operations that bring thousands to European shores every month.
IOM has said nearly 2,000 migrants are believed to have lost their lives at sea since the start of this year, but the exact toll of dead is not known. In April, a smuggling boat crammed with an estimated 800 migrants overturned, also off Libya's coast where smugglers operate. Only 28 survivors, including two alleged smugglers, were found in that tragedy.
Fleeing war, persecution and poverty, migrants travel overland for weeks or months from sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia to reach Libya. There they set sail in flimsy motorized rubber dinghies or rickety old fishing boats. When the boats have problems, someone aboard contacts the coast guard by satellite phone requesting rescue. Other boats in distress are spotted by the European Union's Triton operation, which provides air surveillance.
Triton, however, does not guarantee rescue in such cases. Doyle said the rescue operation underway Wednesday was part of a separate, contingency response outside Triton's purview.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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