- Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LIBYA SEARCH Libyan coast guard searches for illegal migrants
- Date: 7th August 2015
- Summary: TRIPOLI, LIBYA (AUGUST 7, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ENTRANCE TO THE TRIPOLI NAVAL BASE WITH SIGN READING IN ARABIC "TRIPOLI NAVAL BASE" LIBYAN COAST GUARD OFFICIALS SITTING ON SEARCH AND RESCUE BOATS DOCKED AT THE TRIPOLI NAVAL BASE NAVAL BASE EMBLEM READING "TRIPOLI NAVAL BASE SUPPORT TEAM" IN ARABIC COAST GUARD OFFICIAL LOOKING AT NAVIGATION MONITOR ON BOARD A COAST GUA
- Embargoed: 22nd August 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Libya
- Country: Libya
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA73LBVW59WO9CBOXGJZ1S8JUUA
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Libyan coast guard officials launched a search and rescue operation early Friday (August 7) after receiving news that a smuggler boat carrying around 700 migrants capsized off the country's territorial waters.
After several hours searching the seas, the Coast Guard boats returned without having found any migrants.
"We went on an inspection tour after receiving information that a boat carrying some 700 illegal migrants sank. So we carried out an inspection of the area," said Ali Daloub from the Tripoli Naval Support Unit.
The search came just a day after hopes faded of finding more survivors from a shipwreck in which 200 migrants are feared to have drowned.
Some 370 people survived Wednesday's (August 5) disaster and so far 25 corpses, including three children, have been pulled from the waters off the Italian coast.
Vessels from the Italian and Irish navies and humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) saved about 400 people from the fishing boat, thought to have been carrying up to 600 people, mostly Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.
The Mediterranean Sea is the world's most deadly border area for migrants. More than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died so far this year trying to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 during the whole of last year, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday (August 4).
People-smugglers, mostly based in Libya and charging thousands of dollars for passage, have sent more than 90,000 migrants by sea to Italy so far this year, the U.N. refugee agency says. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.
This summer's mass arrivals in both Italy and Greece show the crisis is worsening. Immigrants fleeing violence and poverty at home continue to pour in from Africa and the Middle East.
Many of the newcomers look to move swiftly to wealthier northern Europe, including to Britain from Calais, France.
In April, a 20 metre (66-foot) vessel capsized as it approached a merchant ship that had come to its assistance, and up to 900 people were killed. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean for decades and a symbol of Europe's long-running migrant crisis. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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