Migrant boat confirmed sank off Libyan coast
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E-mail Xinhua, August 24, 2014
Libya's coast guard confirmed on Saturday that a wooden boat carrying some 170 illegal immigrants had sank near Tripoli coast.
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The body of an illegal immigrant floats near Tripoli coast, Libya, on Aug. 22, 2014. A wooden boat carrying some 170 illegal immigrants was missing off the Libyan coast near Tripoli on Friday, according to a coast guard official. [Hamza Turkia/Xinhua] |
The boat was believed to be sank some 100 km east of Tripoli in the Garabulli area on Friday and the coast guards were mobilizing all available boats to save possible survivors, according to one official from the local coast guard.
The official added that the coast guards got a tip about the incident on Friday and set out to search the area. 16 migrants were rescued from the sea so far.
Witnesses told one Xinhua photographer that they saw dozens of bodies floating on the sea. The stowaways were believed from sub- Saharan African countries and intended to go to Italy illegally.
Libya has long been a transit point for migrants seeking to reach Malta, Italy, and other places in Europe because of its proximity and relatively loose border control.
The Libyan government since earlier July has established an agency in cooperation with neighboring countries to combat illegal immigration and smuggling. However, since the deadly militant clashes in major cities have reduced Libya into an anarchy, it is unclear whether the agency is properly functioning now.
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