The Libyan coastguard on Tuesday rescued dozens of migrants including Bangladesh and Pakistan nationals on board two Europe-bound boats off the North African country’s coast on Tuesday.
An official of the Garabulli coastguard told AFP that they rescued 61 migrants on Tuesday evening and they were on a boat and they are all safe.
The officials said that the migrants were from Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and African countries.
Earlier on the day, the Libyan coastguard recovered the bodies of 11 migrants including a child after their Europe-bound boat, carrying migrants from including Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan, sank off the country’s coast, an AFP journalist said.
The coastguard also came to the aid of at least four survivors of the shipwreck who were able to swim to shore after the sinking.
It is the latest migrant tragedy off North Africa, after a migrant boat sinking last week west of Tripoli killed at least 34 people.
Authorities in the town of Garabulli, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Tripoli, were alerted to the presence of bodies floating in the water a few metres (yards) from the shore.
They recovered the corpses of 10 men and a girl and placed them in white body bags, and rescued the survivors who were too exhausted to flee on foot, the AFP journalist said.
Lying on grass, the survivors tried to catch their breath and regain strength after receiving food and drink from the rescuers.
One of the migrants said the boat had carried about 80 people before it went down near the coastline.
Some fled the area after swimming back to shore, but the fate of other migrants was not immediately clear.
Those on board the stricken vessel were of various nationalities, including Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan, according to passports shown by the survivors.
More than a decade of violence in Libya since the fall and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 helped turn the country into a fertile ground for human traffickers who have been accused of abuses ranging from extortion to slavery.-AFP
