The U.N. migration agency renewed its call for increased search and rescue efforts after another tragic shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea claimed the lives of 74 migrant men, women and children.
According to the U.N. International Organisation for Migration, also known as IOM, a boat carrying more than 120 people capsized off the coast of Khums, Libya, November 12.
It was the third fatal incident in less than a week: a migrant vessel shipwrecked November 10, killing 13 people; and the next day, a boat capsized, killing six migrants, including a 6-month-old baby.
“The mounting loss of life in the Mediterranean is a manifestation of the inability of states to take decisive action, to redeploy much needed, dedicated search and rescue capacity in the deadliest sea-crossing in the world,” Federico Soda, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Libya, said.
“We have long called for a change in the evidently unworkable approach to Libya and the Mediterranean, including ending returns to the country and establishing a clear disembarkation mechanism followed by solidarity from other states,” he said. “Thousands of vulnerable people continue to pay the price for inaction both at sea and on land.”
The latest drownings came less than a month after Doctors Without Borders denounced European governments for allegedly preventing nongovernmental organisations from conducting search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean “in a sustained campaign to criminalise saving lives.”
