The tragedy comes as migrant crossings from eastern Libya to Europe have surged, said Ylva Johansson, the EU’s migration and home affairs commissioner. As many as 750 people may have been on board the migrant ship that sank in the Mediterranean a week ago, and just over 100 people survived the shipwreck. We’ve seen an increase with 600% along this route from the eastern part of Libya towards EU or mainly towards Italy,” Johansson told a news conference in Stockholm. “This shows that we really need to do much, much more to prevent this kind of tragedies happening in the Mediterranean,” Johansson said. Such vessels usually leave the Turkish coast and sail round southern Greece in the hope of reaching Italy.

Source: Libya Today June 21, 2023 15:38 UTC