UN : up to 500 migrants may have drowned on their way to Italy

As many as 500 migrants seeking a better future in Europe may have drowned last week in the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy, The Washington Post quoted U.N. refugee officials as saying.

If confirmed, the toll would make the incident one of the worst tragedies involving refugees and migrants in the past year.

On Tuesday, a team from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spoke with some of the 41 survivors of the alleged accident who had arrived at Kalamata, a town on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, the U.N. agency said in a statement.

“If confirmed, as many as 500 people may have lost their lives when a large ship went down in the Mediterranean Sea at an unknown location between Libya and Italy,” the agency said.

The survivors in Kalamata included 37 men, three women and a 3-year-old child. They were from Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. All were rescued by a merchant ship that then took them to Greece.

“The survivors told us that they had been part of a group of between 100 and 200 people who departed last week from a locality near Tobruk in Libya on a 30-meter-long [90-foot] boat,” the UNHCR said.

After sailing for several hours, the smugglers tried to transfer the passengers to a larger ship “carrying hundreds of people in terribly overcrowded conditions,” the U.N. agency said.

“At one point during the transfer, the larger boat capsized and sank,” it added.

Source ; MENA