4 dead in migrant shipwreck off Libya, says Red Crescent

Libya’s Red Crescent said it took part in a major rescue operation after two boats carrying close to 100 irregular migrants capsized off the country’s coast, leaving four dead.

The four dead were among 26 Bangladeshis traveling aboard one vessel, the organization said.

The second boat was carrying 69 migrants, two of them Egyptian and the rest Sudanese, eight of whom were children, the Red Crescent said, reporting no deaths among them.

The organization said it had received an alert overnight about two boats that had capsized in the Mediterranean. They had departed from the Libyan city of Khoms, 120km east of Tripoli. The Red Crescent said it had worked alongside the coast guard and port authorities.

Libya is a key transit country for thousands of migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea each year.

Earlier this week, the International Organization for Migration said the sinking of another ship that sailed from Libya had left 42 missing, presumed dead.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded more than 1,700 people dead or missing this year on Mediterranean migration routes and off the coast of West Africa.

According to Missing Migrants, an IOM project, around 33,000 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014.

Elsewhere, reports said 19 boats carrying around 360 people reached Spain’s Balearic Islands recently, the latest surge in arrivals defying attempts by authorities to curb the fastest-growing migratory route into the EU.

Arrivals via the Western Mediterranean route — primarily boats departing Algeria for Spain — rose 27 percent in January-October compared with the same period last year, the steepest increase among routes, even as overall arrivals to the EU fell 22 percent, according to data from EU border agency Frontex.

Smugglers are using faster boats, with the Balearics their main destination, Frontex spokesperson Chris Borowski said.

Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska last month met with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune who agreed to work on improving the deportation of irregular Algerian migrants in Spain and fight against smugglers.

Algeria has cut the number of deportations it accepts since 2022, a Spanish Interior Ministry spokesperson said.

The surge is causing concern in the Balearics, with regional leader Marga Prohens calling on the Spanish government to better “protect our borders.”

Irregular arrivals to the Balearics rose 66 percent year-to-date until October to 6,280 people, according to Spanish official data. Meanwhile, overall arrivals to Spain were down 36 percent year-on-year mainly due to decreasing flows to the Canary Islands, located off West Africa.

Data shows migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly opting to use the Western Mediterranean route. They now account for more than half of arrivals in the Balearics compared to a third last year, according to Spanish government representative in the archipelago, Alfonso Rodriguez.