At least four people were killed after a pair of boats carrying migrants capsized off Libya’s coast, the country’s Red Crescent said.
One boat was carrying 26 people from Bangladesh and four of them died when the vessel overturned late Thursday, the Red Crescent said in a statement on Facebook.
The second boat was carrying 69 people, including two Egyptians and dozens of Sudanese nationals, among them children. The status of this vessel was unclear.
Images released by the Red Crescent showed bodies in black plastic bags laid out on a floor while volunteers administered first aid to survivors nearby.
They also showed the rescued migrants wrapped in silver thermal blankets, sitting on the ground as emergency workers moved among them.
The incident took place off the coastal city of Al Khums, about 118km east of the capital Tripoli, according to the Red Crescent.
Red Crescent rescuers worked alongside local authorities to pull bodies from the water and assist the survivors.
The charity said members of the Coast Guard and the Khums Port Security Agency took part in the operation and that the bodies recovered from the first vessel were later handed over to the relevant authorities on instructions from the city’s public prosecution.
Libya has been a major transit hub for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and Asia since a Nato bombing campaign helped topple longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and plunged the Arab nation into chaos and lawlessness.
The latest incident came just weeks after the International Organization for Migration said 42 migrants were missing and presumed dead after a rubber boat sank near the Al Buri oilfield off the Libyan coast.
In October, a wooden migrant boat that had departed Al Zawiya in northwest Libya capsized due to high waves, killing 18 people, according to the organisation. Another 64 people from Sudan, Bangladesh and Pakistan survived.
The latest shipwreck adds to the rising death toll in the Central Mediterranean, where more than 1,000 people have died since the beginning of 2025, including over 500 lost off the coast of Libya, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.
European authorities have repeatedly urged Libya to improve monitoring and safety conditions along its coastline but rights groups say the situation for migrants remains precarious as departures continue despite the risks.
