Migrant boat capsizes off Libya leaving 53 dead

The migrants were travelling in a rubber dinghy similar to this, when it capsized off the coast of Libya

A rubber boat carrying 55 passengers, including two babies, has overturned off the coast of Libya, the UN migration agency says.

The only survivors, two Nigerian women, were rescued by the Libyan authorities on Friday, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) announced on Monday. The boat was carrying migrants and refugees from various African countries, it said.

The boat sank after taking on water approximately six hours after departing from the coastal city of al-Zawiya in north-western Libya.

The IOM says that almost 500 migrants have been reported dead or missing trying the cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya so far in 2026.

Libya has become a staging point for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to reach Europe since long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011.

Survivors told IOM that the rubber dinghy had departed at around 23:00 local time from al-Zawiya, west of Tripoli. It overturned several hours later in the early hours of Friday north of Zuwara.

It is not immediately clear why it has taken so long for the news to emerge.

One of the two survivors said she had lost her husband, while the other reported that her two babies had died, the agency said. IOM teams provided both women with emergency medical care.

IOM says at least 375 migrants were reported dead or missing in January alone after a series of "invisible" shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean during periods of extreme winter weather. The true toll is feared to be higher.

Despite the repeated tragedies, migrants continue to attempt the crossing.

IOM says traffickers and smuggling networks profit by forcing people onto overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels, contributing to the mounting death toll.

The agency has urged stronger international cooperation to dismantle smuggling and trafficking networks, alongside the creation of safe and legal migration pathways to reduce deaths at sea.

Many vessels that sink are never reported by the people smugglers who operate them. Those who die simply vanish, their families left without ever knowing what happened to them.

Several countries, including the UK, Spain, Norway and Sierra Leone, have called on Libya to shut down detention centres where rights groups say migrants have been tortured, abused or killed.

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