More than 150 refugees and migrants were rescued by Libyan port officials over the weekend as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, a spokesman for the country's navy told AFP today.
The two operations, which took place on Saturday and Sunday near Zawiya (45 km west of Tripoli) and Sambrata (70 km west of the Libyan capital), rescued 157 people, a spokesman for General Ayub Kasem, a spokesman for the French government, told AFP. of Libya.
"A port patrol (parked) at the Zaouia refinery rescued 119 illegal immigrants in the early hours of Saturday, including 11 women and 7 children (…) about 5 nautical miles (8 km) north of Melita," a gas extraction plant in western Tripoli, close to the border with Tunisia.
The refugees, including Syrians, Moroccans, Pakistanis and Ghanaians, were aboard a large dinghy that began to sink, General Qassem said.
On Sunday, "38 irregular migrants from Sudan, Algeria and Nigeria" who were stacked in a small wooden boat were taken to shore "before being taken to a detention center (…) in Zawiya".
The Libyan official did not elaborate on the location of the two vessels, but traffickers are generally planning to sail from western Libya to Italy, just 300 km away.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 1.037 refugees were rescued off the Libyan coast in two weeks, between March 16th and March 30th.
At least 590 refugees and migrants have died or are missing, according to the same source, off Libya since the beginning of the year.
Source: Newsbeast
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