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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 3 June 2016:
The Libyan Red Crescent has reported that 117 bodies have been washed up across 25 km of . . .[restrict]beaches of the western Libyan coastal city of Zuwara. The bodies include those of young children, reports Migrant Report.
Zuwara Council which has been conducting a campaign to stop people smuggling, condemned those responsible for the deaths.
Meanwhile, MSF has today reported that rescue ship Aquarius has rescued 96 migrants at sea off Libyan waters. These included 23 kids under the age of 18, including two under five.
Further east across the Mediterranean, a 20-meter boat with about 700 migrants that had set off from the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria has capsized about 75 nautical miles south of Crete. Greek Coastguard had reported rescuing 342 migrants. They also reported recovering four bodies.
This is the second incident in 2016 off Egypt after another boat had capsized in April which had departed from Egypt with an unconfirmed 500 deaths. The incident happened when two vessels, one from eastern Libya and one from Egypt, met at sea and an attempt to transfer migrants from one boat to the other went catastrophically wrong.
The incident confirms fears by experts that there will be a surge of illegal migration attempts by sea from Libya and Egypt as a result of the EU-Turkey deal and subsequent closure of the Turkey/Balkan route.
It also confirms the increased sophistication and mobility of migrants and the head smugglers as they are prepared to switch routes in reaction to anti-migration measures as well as use sophisticated navigation and mobiles to coordinate missions. Off Libya, rescuers confirmed to this publication that smugglers would phone them after sending boats into sea in order to rescue them.
Alganesh Fessaha, Eritrean founder of the Gandhi Charity which rescues migrants, and who had just returned from Alexandria, told Libya Herald at a recent illegal migration event in Malta, that she anticipated an increase in sailings from Alexandria due to the shortage of boats in Libya.
More than 2,500 people have died trying to cross the sea to Europe so far this year, with over 1,000 feared dead in the last week of May alone. [/restrict]
