KABUL (Pajhwok): The bodies of at least 15 migrants, including a girl, have washed ashore along Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast over the past week after their boat was believed to have capsized.
Reuters, citing security, navy and medical sources, reported that the vessel was carrying around 61 people. The bodies were recovered from several locations along the coastline of Tobruk, a city near the Egyptian border.
Two security officials said the remains were badly decomposed and warned that more bodies could still be found.
Images shared on Facebook by the Tobruk Red Crescent showed volunteers wearing white protective suits recovering bodies from rocky shorelines and placing them into white plastic bags.
Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya has become a major transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty who attempt to reach Europe through dangerous journeys across the desert and the Mediterranean Sea.
The oil-dependent Libyan economy has also attracted impoverished migrants seeking employment.
Separately, the Emergency Medicine and Support Centre in Khumas city, which operates under Libya’s health ministry in Tripoli, said its medics treated 13 migrants after their boat capsized off the coast.
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