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A hundred migrants and refugees were feared drowned Thursday after yet another shipwreck off the Libyan coast, raising the number of those missing feared drowned this week to 340.
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Doctors Without Borders, MSF, said around 100 people were believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, according to 27 migrants and refugees who had been plucked to safety and were being brought to Italy.
The surviving group, all men, said they had set sail from a beach close to Tripoli before dawn Monday. After several hours, the traffickers traveling aboard a separate boat took their engine and left them to their fate, without a satellite phone to call for help.
About 100 migrants and refugees were lost at sea in the Mediterranean on Tuesday, with only 23 of 122 in a capsized dinghy that disappeared off the Libyan coast — bumping up the death toll Tuesday to almost 4,400 this year.
German NGO Jugend Rettet, whose boat was at the scene, first broke the news, with survivors saying there were children as young as 15 onboard. Out of 10 women who were reportedly on the boat, only one survived. The coast guard refused to announce the number of missing.
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The death toll in the Mediterranean has surged this year to 4,621 as of Nov. 14, compared to 3,777 in the whole of 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Since the start of the year, over 167,000 people have been brought to safety in Italy, a figure that has already passed the 153,000 number recorded in 2015 and is closing in on the 170,000 figure recorded in 2014.
Numbers began dropping dramatically following a March deal between Turkey and the European Union to crack down on migrants and refugees arriving from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea.
While it was presented as a solution to the refugee crisis — the continent’s biggest since World War II — the deal appears to have worsened the plight of many asylum seekers, who are now being pushed to travel the far riskier option across the Mediterranean from North Africa.
The most dangerous route has been between Libya and Italy, where the U.N. has recorded one death for every 47 arrivals this year. Meanwhile, for the much shorter Turkey to Greece route, the likelihood of drowning was one in 88, UNHCR said.
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The agency explained that death rates have spiked despite a nearly two-thirds drop in total migration because smugglers are "often using lower quality vessels — flimsy inflatable rafts that do not last the journey."
Smugglers also appear to be packing increasing numbers of people on boats, possibly to drive up profits, the UNHCR added. Shipwrecks involving more people have reduced rescue rates, the agency added, also noting that several disasters this year have been linked to poor weather conditions.
The European Parliament tried to push for humanitarian visas on Monday as “a political wish to open new legal avenues for safe access to the EU for persons seeking international protection, to prevent dangerous journeys and loss of lives as witnessed during the last years (of the) migration crisis,” according to EU documentation. The visas would require processing before the refugee makes the trip to Europe, but the council and commission — the other two decision-making bodies — staunchly oppose the proposal.
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