170 feared dead as boat sinks off Libyan coast

Coastguard says search continues after 16 people were rescued, 15 bodies recovered

TRIPOLI: A wooden boat with around 200 African migrants on board trying to reach Europe has sunk in rough seas off the Libyan coast, a spokesman for the Libyan navy said on Saturday.

“We are looking for 170 African passengers on a wooden boat that has foundered off the Qarabouli area” some 60 kilometres east of Tripoli, said coastguard official Abdellatif Mohammed Ibrahim.

“A few miles off the coast, we found the remains of a wooden boat which had some 200 migrants on board,” he said. “We managed to save 16 people and recovered 15 bodies, but the search continues for some 170 people who disappeared at sea,” confirmed Ibrahim.

“The coast guards have rescued 17 of the illegal migrants,” navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem said. The boat sank late on Friday near Qarabouli, east of Tripoli, a common launchpad used by human traffickers smuggling people to Europe, Qassem said. “A search for the rest of the passengers was underway.”

Local coast guard official said they had been alerted to the sinking by local fishermen at dawn on Saturday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2014.