More than 30 migrants died and 200 were rescued on Saturday after their boats foundered off Libya's western coast, the Libyan navy said. The coastguard conducted two rescue operations off the city of Garabulli, 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Tripoli, spokesman Colonel Abu Ajila Abdelbarri said. He added that patrols had found 31 bodies and 60 survivors from one boat, while all 140 passengers had survived in a second boat.
"When we arrived at the spot, we found an inflatable dinghy with several people clinging to part of it," he said. Libyan navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem told AFP that 18 women and three children were among the dead recovered from the sea, while 40 people were missing Migrants from Somalia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria and four from Pakistan were among those rescued.
Libyan patrol boat commander Nasser al-Ghammoudi said one of the vessels was three-quarters under water when the coastguard arrived. "We looked for other survivors for more than five hours," he said. "We were able to rescue one woman after we heard her shouts." A French NGO, SOS Mediterranee, said later Saturday that it had rescued more than 400 people from a stricken wooden boat in international waters further from the Libyan coast. Other rescue operations were ongoing on Saturday evening, the Italian coastguard told AFP.
Italy's coastguard, which coordinates the rescue effort in international waters, reported that a total of 1,500 people had been saved on Thursday and Friday. The large numbers in recent days contrast with a sharp drop since mid-July in the number of migrants being brought to Italy. On Thursday, the UNHCR put the number of arrivals at Italian ports in the previous three months at 21,666, the lowest total registered in four years for that period of the year.
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