CAIRO: A boat carrying 13 Egyptian migrants to Europe has capsized off Libya’s coast, killing all on board except for one person, local authorities and a Libyan group said Tuesday.
Al-Abreen, a group that provides humanitarian assistance to migrants in Libya, said on Facebook that the boat capsized 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the city of Tobruk on Monday evening.
One migrant survived, according to the group, which said the bodies were recovered and brought to shore.
The Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration in Tobruk also confirmed the incident.
In recent years, the North African nation has become the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
Last month, a migrant boat carrying 32 people capsized off the Libyan coast due to engine failure, leaving one person dead and 22 others missing, according to Libyan authorities. The coast guard in Tobruk said nine people were rescued. Al-Abreen said the boat was bound for Europe and was carrying migrants from Egypt and Syria.
Human traffickers have long taken advantage of instability in Libya that escalated after a NATO-backed uprising overthrew and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Traffickers smuggle migrants on crammed, poorly equipped vessels on risky sea trips across the North African nation’s borders, which are shared with six countries.
Last year, 962 migrants died and 1,563 went missing off Libya, the International Organization for Migration said. About 17,200 migrants were intercepted and sent back to Libya in 2023, the organization said.
Boat carrying Egyptian migrants to Europe capsizes off Libyan coast, killing 12
https://arab.news/jeknb
Boat carrying Egyptian migrants to Europe capsizes off Libyan coast, killing 12
- The boat capsized 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the city of Tobruk
- One migrant survived as bodies were recovered and brought to shore
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military priso
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
