Dead or Missing After Migrant Boat Capsized Off Libya Coast

A migrant boat capsized off eastern Libya on June 12, leaving 51 people dead or missing, with ten survivors. The Abreen monitoring group said 11 bodies had been retrieved and 40 people remained unaccounted for. The Libyan coast guard and the Red Crescent in Tobruk have recovered bodies washed ashore over the past 24 hours. This latest disaster adds to a harsh toll along the region’s migration routes, where the Libyan coast is a major transit point for people seeking Europe in crowded, unsafe vessels. Human traffickers have benefited from Libya’s chaos, and intercepted migrants are often returned to detention centers with reports of abuses amounting to crimes against humanity, according to UN-backed investigators. The International Organization for Migration notes more than 800 migrants were dead or missing on the central Mediterranean route between January 1 and May 16 this year, with more than 1,300 deaths on the route last year.