Forty-two migrants presumed dead after shipwreck near Libya: UN

Accident would adhd to much than 1,000 migrant deaths successful cardinal Mediterranean crossings this year.

Forty-two migrants, including 29 from Sudan, 8 from Somalia, 3 from Cameroon and 2 from Nigeria, person been missing astatine oversea and presumed dormant since their vessel overturned disconnected the seashore of Libya, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Their rubber vessel, packed with 49 migrants, capsized connected November 3, six hours aft departing the northwestern coastal municipality of Zuwara, the IOM said connected Wednesday, citing survivors.

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Seven of the passengers survived six days adrift astatine oversea and were rescued connected November 8 by a Libyan hunt and rescue crew, said the IOM.

The mishap would people the latest deadly crossing effort successful the cardinal Mediterranean Sea, wherever much than 1,000 migrants trying to scope Europe person died this year, according to figures from the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.

‘Urgent request for harmless regular migration’

The latest shipwreck demonstrates “the urgent request for strengthened determination cooperation, expanded harmless and regular migration pathways, and much effectual hunt and rescue operations to forestall further nonaccomplishment of life”, said the IOM.

It besides comes amid increasing backlash towards the behaviour of Libya’s coastguard and different authorities, which person agelong faced accusations of unit and abuse towards migrants portion astatine oversea and wrong their borders.

Between 2016 and September 2025, Libya’s coastguard committed astatine slightest 60 convulsive maritime incidents, according to a caller study by the NGO Sea-Watch. The incidents included shooting astatine boats carrying refugees and asylum seekers, abandoning radical astatine oversea and hindering rescue operations.

Last week, a conjugation of 13 European hunt and rescue organisations suspended practice with Libya’s maritime rescue coordination centre implicit alleged rights violations. They accused Libya’s coastguard of being an “illegitimate actor”, amounting to a “decentralised web of equipped militias equipped and trained with EU funds”.

“We volition not beryllium coerced into communicating our operational presumption to EU-funded equipped militias, shooting astatine radical fleeing to information and our rescue crews,” said the alliance.

The cardinal Mediterranean is the busiest way for irregular question to the European Union, with much than 58,000 attempted crossings betwixt January and October this year, according to the EU’s borderline bureau Frontex.

Libya, location to astir 867,055 asylum seekers and refugees, has emerged arsenic a main transit way for those trying to scope Europe.

Rights groups and UN agencies person documented systematic abuse against refugees and migrants wrong Libya, including torture, rape and extortion.