By Spy Uganda CorrespondentĀ
Ā Libya: More than 100 migrants and refugees are feared to have drowned after a rubber boat capsized off the coast of Libya, a rescue charity
According to sources, the ship was reportedly carrying some 130 people, with rescue teams saying there is little hope of finding survivors.
European humanitarian group SOS Mediterranee said on Thursday that the boat, with 130 people on board, was reported in distress on Wednesday in international waters off Libya in addition to two other boats.
Another wooden boat was still missing with about 40 migrants aboard, a spokesman for SOS Mediterranee said on Friday.
The civil hotline Alarm Phone had reported three boats were in distress on Wednesday, prompting SOS Mediterranee to launch a search āin very rough seas, with up to 6-metre wavesā, the non-government organization said in a press release issued earlier.
Three merchant vessels helped the charityās own rescue ship Ocean Viking search for the boats in international waters, northeast of the Libyan city of Tripoli.
SOS Mediterranee said merchant ship MY ROSE found three bodies in the water and an airplane of EU border agency Frontex spotted the rubber boat soon after.
When Ocean Viking arrived on the scene it did not find any survivors but there were ten bodies in the water nearby. The statement issued on Twitter carried a photograph of a capsized black rubber boat.
A spokesman for the NGO said he had no information on the third boat that Alarm Phone had said was in distress.
Conflict-ridden Libya is a major route for migrants seeking to reach Europe. The French NGO said more than 350 people have died this year in the Central Mediterranean making the perilous voyage.
āStates abandon their responsibility to coordinate Search and Rescue operations, leaving private actors and civil society to fill the deadly void they leave behind,ā SOS Mediterranee said in its statement.
The U.N. agencies called for reactivating state-led search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and for a halt to returning migrants to āunsafe portsā.
The U.N.ās International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a report at the end of March that last year more than 2,200 people perished at sea.
The true toll is probably far higher as aid groups reported at least five āinvisible shipwrecksā that were never confirmed as they left no survivors.
