Migrants from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Sudan, wait to be assisted by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, after fleeing Libya on board a precarious wooden boat in the Mediterranean sea, about 110 miles north of Libya, on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)
At least two people have died and several others are feared missing after a rubber dinghy sank in waters between Libya and Tunisia, according to German humanitarian organisation Sea-Watch.
Sea-Watch said its rescue vessel, Aurora, responded to the incident following an alert from the migrant distress hotline Alarm Phone and found the dinghy almost completely deflated.
The organisation said five people were found aboard the vessel alongside two bodies, while another 25 survivors had managed to cling to the Hasdrubal offshore platform after escaping the shipwreck.
Child Among Dead
Sea-Watch said two women among the survivors reported losing their children in the waves.
“Among the two lifeless bodies was that of a child, perhaps one of the two missing,” the organisation said in a post cited by the Ghana News Agency.
The incident occurred near the boundary between the Libyan and Tunisian Search and Rescue zones.
According to Sea-Watch, the five survivors found on the dinghy said other people had managed to reach the oil platform following the shipwreck, raising concerns that more passengers could remain unaccounted for.
The exact number of people originally aboard the dinghy was not immediately established in the report, making the full number of missing persons unclear.
The latest incident adds to continuing concerns over the dangers faced by migrants and refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa towards Europe in overcrowded and often unseaworthy vessels.
