130 migrants feared dead in shipwreck off Libyan coast
A volunteer rescue group searched the Mediterranean waters but found no survivors.
More than 130 migrants are believed dead after their rubber boat sank off the coast of Libya, the UN migration agency and rescue organizations said Friday.
In a statement, French volunteer rescue group SOS Méditerranée said its Ocean Viking vessel responded to an alert of three boats of distress in the central Mediterranean waters northeast of the Libyan city of Tripoli. After hours of search in the rough seas, the rescue crew discovered 10 floating bodies and no survivors.
“We searched relentlessly without receiving support from the responsible maritime authorities,” said Luisa Albera, the search-and-rescue coordinator onboard the Ocean Viking.
“States abandon their responsibility to coordinate search and rescue operations, leaving private actors and civil society to fill the deadly void they leave behind,” Albera said. “We can see the result of this deliberate inaction in the sea around our ship.”
