The Doctors without Borders [Médecins Sans Frontières], which is an international medical humanitarian organization, announced Monday that more than a 100 asylum seeker drowned in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast one week ago.
A group of 276 people, among them survivors of the shipwreck, was brought from the sea to the port city of Khoms by the Libyan coast guard on Sunday 2 September, reported MSF.
According to the information received by MSF staff, two rubber boats reportedly left the Libyan coast early in the morning on Saturday 1 September. Each boat was carrying more than 160 people of different nationalities including Sudanese, Malians, Nigerians, Cameroonians, Ghanaians, Libyans, Algerians, and Egyptians.
"While the first boat had stopped due to an engine failure, our boat continued to navigate and began deflating around 1 pm. There were 165 adults and 20 children on-board”, explains a survivor of the shipwreck.
"At that time, the mobile satellite phone showed that we were not far from Maltese coast. We called the Italian coastguard and sent our coordinates, asking for assistance as people started to fall in the water. We were told they would send someone. But the boat started sinking. We couldn’t swim and only a few people had life jackets. Those among us who could hold on the boat’s floating hood stayed alive.""[European] Rescuers came later by air and threw life rafts but everybody was in the water; the boat had already sunk and capsized. A few hours later, other rescuers also came by air, throwing more life rafts. On our boat, only 55 people survived. Many people died, including families and children. They could have been saved if rescuers had come earlier", the survivor continued:
"More than 20 children have died, including two 17-months old twins who perished, along with their mother and father. The Libyan coastguard also arrived, rescuing first the shipwreck survivors and then recovering the second boat. We were all brought here to Libya.” Only two bodies were recovered.
ILKHA