Over 100 Dead in Migrant Shipwrecks off Libyan Coast
Dozens of people died in two shipwrecks off the coast of Libya this week, as the rising death toll in the Mediterranean Sea made it the deadliest year on record.
The Libyan navy said 97 people, including three women and a child, are missing after a migrant boat sank on October 26, and they were only able to rescue 20 passengers. The dinghy left the northwestern Libyan town of Garabulli before being hit with high waves that destroyed the boat, according to the navy.
One the same day in a separate incident, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) discovered 25 dead bodies during a rescue operation off Libya. The aid group rescued 246 people on two rafts, before finding the bodies in a pool of fuel and seawater, likely suffocated by fuel fumes, at the bottom of one vessel.
“Sea rescue operations are becoming a race through a maritime graveyard, and our rescue teams are overwhelmed by a policy-made crisis where we feel powerless to stop the loss of life,” MSF’s manager of migration operations, Stefano Argenziano, told the Guardian.
Over 3,800 people have died in the Mediterranean this year, surpassing 2015’s record death toll.
Children Sleep Rough in Destroyed Calais Camp
Dozens of children slept amid the ruins of a demolished migrant camp in the French port city of Calais this week amid confusion over their fate.
Around 100 minors were left stranded at the remains of the camp known as the “Jungle,” dismantled by French authorities this week, and spent two nights sleeping among its partially demolished shelters, the Guardian reported.
France sent buses to collect the children on October 28, pledging to transfer them to reception centers. Nearly 1,500 children at the camp had already been transferred to a specially designated camp nearby for minors, officials said. Another 274 children with relatives in Britain were admitted to the U.K..
Prior to its demolition, the camp sheltered between 6,000 and 8,000 migrants and refugees hoping to reach Britain.
The French authorities are relocating the former residents to reception centers around the country, although aid groups estimate between 2,000 and 3,000 people fled the area before the operation started.
Displaced Nigerians Wounded After Hitting Land Mine
Nigerians on their way home after their town was recaptured from Boko Haram hit a landmine believed to have been planted by the group, highlighting the continuing dangers to displaced communities in the region.
The explosion wounded several passengers in the military-escorted convoy taking people and food from the regional capital of Maiduguri, Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, to their town of Gamboru-Ngala.
It follows another land mine explosion earlier this month in which eight were killed when a van of refugees struck a mine outside Maiduguri.
Following military gains against the insurgent group, Nigerian authorities have repeatedly said that it is safe for displaced communities to return home, but many locals warn that Boko Haram remains active in parts of the northeast.
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