adminIt is being described as one of the worst disaster of its kind. At least 800 migrants trying to enter Europe drowned in the Mediterranean over the weekend when their overloaded boat capsized. Only 28 survived.
One survivor, whom we will call Jamal, a 16-year-old from Somalia, said of the ordeal experienced at the hands of people smugglers in Libya, where the migrants set off to Europe.
“The problem we faced in Libya was mainly around the fact we had our money taken and we were beaten up very badly. Some individuals I know died of starvation. The trafficker didn’t allow us to speak to our families, we weren’t given any food and we were constantly beaten.
“One time, the trafficking ring was uncovered and the boss man blamed it on a woman who he beat severely, she then came back to us; she was crying,” Jamal said.
Jamal said the boat was so crowded that at one point he fell overboard and had to be dragged back in.
On Tuesday, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned that, based on current figures, the migrant death toll on the Mediterranean this year could top 30,000.
The IOM said it believed 1,727 migrants have died trying to make the journey to Europe from North Africa so far this year, compared to just 56 at the same time last year.
“IOM now fears that the 2014 total of 3,279 migrant deaths may be surpassed this year in a matter of weeks,” the group said in a statement.
The migrant boat’s captain and the ship’s mate are now facing charges of reckless multiple homicide.
Meanwhile, Libya has stopped several boats packed with Africans trying to reach Italy’s shores in the past three days, detaining more than 600 immigrants, a security official said on Tuesday.
The North African country, gripped by violence and a breakdown of state authority four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi, has turned into major hub for human traffickers smuggling African emigrants by boat to Italy.
Libyan security forces detained on Tuesday around 70 Africans in Tripoli where they were waiting for smugglers to put them on a boat bound for Lampedusa, a senior immigration official told Reuters in Tripoli.
At least two boats, one packed with some 250 people from Senegal, Ghana and Ethiopia and other African nationalities and another one with Ethiopians and Eritreans on board, were stopped in the past three days after sailing off from Libya, he said.
Captured immigrants are held in often cramped detention centres in Libya, sometimes for months on end, human rights groups say.
Libya’s coast guards have few resources to combat human trafficking, and rely on fishing and tug boats.
The European Union helped in the past to train and equip Libyan coast guards, but a worsening security situation has forced foreign training staff to leave the country.
A self-declared Libyan government controlling Tripoli has appealed to foreign countries to help it fight human trafficking but European powers are boycotting the administration which took power after an armed group seized the capital in August. — Al Jazeera
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