30 Migrants Traveling From Libya to Italy Die When Boat Capsizes
At least 30 migrants traveling from Libya in the hopes of reaching Italy are missing and presumed dead and 17 were rescued when the boat they were in capsized in the central Mediterranean Sea on Sunday.
The boat capsized about 110 miles northwest of Benghazi. Libyan authorities requested Italy’s help in rescuing the migrants. Italian merchant ships first joined the rescue effort, but the migrant ship capsized during an operation to transfer the migrants to a merchant ship.
The boat was already having trouble on Saturday; a migrant rights group, Alarm Phone, has blamed the Italian coastguard for not assisting sooner, saying it did not want to have to bring the illegal migrants to Italy, Reuters reported. But the coastguard said that the ship capsized outside Italy’s official search and rescue area.
Italy is a popular destination for migrants from countries along the Mediterranean. Some 17,600 migrants reached Italy this year as of March 10, compared to 6,000 in the same period last year.
