Libya says 17 migrants perish at sea, nine missing feared dead

BENGHAZI, April 30 (Reuters) – At least 17 migrants died and nine are missing after their boat broke down and drifted for eight days in the Mediterranean Sea, Libya’s Red Crescent and Libyan security sources said on Wednesday.

The Red Crescent said in a statement that the volunteers in cooperation with naval forces and coast guards of the Libyan National Army rescued seven survivors during recovery operations off Tobruk city in eastern Libya, near the border with Egypt.

Libya is a transit route for migrants, many of them from sub-Saharan Africa, who risk their lives to flee to Europe across desert and sea in the hope of escaping conflict and poverty.

The security sources said they expected the bodies of the nine missing migrants to wash ashore in the next few days.

Pictures posted on the internet by the Red Crescent showed the volunteers placing the bodies in black plastic bags and loading them into the back of pick-up vehicles.

On Tuesday, the country’s attorney general said Tripoli Criminal Court sentenced four members of a “criminal gang” in Zuwara, western Libya, to up to 22 years jail for human trafficking, abductions for ransom and torture.

In a separate case, the Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered on Monday the arrest of another gang that allegedly sent migrants from Tobruk on a dilapidated boat that capsized, resulting in the death of 38 Sudanese, Egyptian, and Ethiopian nationals, according to the attorney general.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; writing by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Stephen Coates)