Europe

Up to 150 Migrants Dead After Boats Capsize in Mediterranean Sea

OH NO

“The worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year has just occurred,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said.

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Up to 150 migrants are feared dead after the boats they were traveling in to reach Europe capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday. A spokesman for Libya’s coast guard told the Associated Press that two boats carrying around 300 migrants capsized, and only 127 people were saved. He also said the coast guard has recovered one body so far. Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the 150 estimate included women and children. “The worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year has just occurred,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told the AP. This comes after 117 died or went missing off the Libyan coast in January, and after 65 drowned after a boat sank off the Tunisian coast in May. Yaxley said that in 2019, one person had died on the journey from Libya to Europe for every six migrants who made it to Europe alive.

Read it at The Associated Press

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