At least 53 individuals, including two infants, have tragically lost their lives or gone missing after an inflatable migrant vessel sank off the coast of Libya, as reported by the UN migration agency on Monday. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) disclosed that the boat, carrying 55 African migrants, set off from Zawiya in western Libya late Thursday and capsized north of Zuwara on Friday morning after six hours at sea, leading to the devastating outcome.
Following the incident, Libyan authorities rescued two Nigerian women who survived the shipwreck. One woman mentioned losing her husband, while the other shared the heartbreaking news of losing her two babies. The IOM highlighted the exploitation of migrants by trafficking and smuggling networks along the central Mediterranean route, using unsafe vessels to transport individuals from Libya to Europe for profit.
According to the IOM’s missing migrants project, the total count of reported deceased or missing migrants on the central Mediterranean route in 2026 has reached 484, with the perilous journey exacerbated by Cyclone Harry earlier in the year. In the previous year, over 1,300 migrants met similar fates along the same route, as stated by the IOM.
Despite the chaos in Libya resulting from past conflicts, the nation has become a key transit point for migrants escaping conflicts and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. Human traffickers have taken advantage of the turmoil, smuggling migrants across Libya’s extensive borders shared with six neighboring countries. Migrants are often coerced into traveling on overcrowded and inadequately equipped vessels, including rubber boats.
For those intercepted and returned to Libya, conditions in government-run detention centers are dire, characterized by widespread abuses such as forced labor, physical violence, sexual assault, and torture. These practices, deemed as crimes against humanity by UN-commissioned investigators, are often accompanied by extortion attempts targeting families of detained individuals before they are released to traffickers for onward journeys out of Libya.
