About 90 Migrants Feared Dead After Boat Capsizes Near Libya

GENEVA — Around 90 migrants were feared to have drowned after a smuggler’s boat foundered off the coast of Libya early Friday as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, the United Nations migration agency said.

Most of the victims appear to have been Pakistanis, according to information provided by three survivors that had not been verified, said Olivia Headon, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration.

Still, that information was in keeping with a trend of increasing numbers of Pakistanis trying to make the perilous crossing from Libya to Europe, usually to Italy. Most migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe are from sub-Saharan West African countries.

More than 13,100 Pakistanis made the trip in 2017, making them the 13th-largest group, by nationality, to arrive in Italy, Headon said, speaking with reporters in Geneva by telephone from Tunis. Last month, 248 Pakistanis reached Italy via the Mediterranean route, the third-largest group by nationality, compared with eight in January 2017.

Their appearance on the route, along with the growing numbers of Bangladeshis in 2017, points to traffickers’ use of social media to lure customers, said Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the migration agency.

The bodies of two Libyans and eight Pakistanis washed up on the Libyan coast, Headon said. She added that the boat appeared to have become unbalanced and may have capsized despite relatively calm waters after setting off from Zuwara, in western Libya, a popular departure point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

The migration agency had previously reported that 246 migrants died trying to make the crossing in January. The disaster Friday means the number of people killed this year while attempting to reach Europe will almost certainly surpass 300.

More than 35 people were believed to have died Sunday, when a dinghy crowded with more than 130 people sank within hours of leaving Zuwara. It is unclear whether the toll was included in the January data.

The chaotic conditions in Libya, which has been devastated by years of war, have made it a hub for migrants and the traffickers smuggling them to Europe.

Europe has been wrestling with the issue for years as people try to flee war and economic hardship, and the number of people making the crossing dropped by one-third in 2017 after the European Union struck a deal with Libya to try to stop the flow of migrants.

But 6,624 people made the crossing in January, according to the migration agency, slightly more than in the same month last year.