40 migrants feared dead after shipwreck near Libyan coast – UNHCR
Almost 40 migrants are believed to have died after an inflatable dinghy capsized on Wednesday, UN refugee agency UNHCR says. "My colleagues are interviewing the survivors... who arrived this afternoon in Augusta (Sicily), and they are talking of 35 to 40 people missing at sea," Federico Fossi UNHCR's spokesman in Italy said, as cited by AFP. According to Italian daily La Repubblica three dinghies were sailing from Tripoli when suddenly one carrying 120 people started filling with water and sank. Most migrants were rescued by a commercial boat and then picked up by a German navy vessel, the Holstein, which transported about 230 people. According to the UNHCR most of the migrants came from sub-Saharan African countries such as Somalia, Eritrea, Benin and Mali. The International Organization for Migration reported this month that more than 1,900 migrants died this year in attempts to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean.
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