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Hundreds of African migrants die in shipwreck off Libya’s coast
By Liam Stack | Correspondent
Enlarge This Graphic Rich Clabaugh/STAFF
Hundreds of African and Arab migrants are feared dead after several rickety boats smuggling them to a better life in Europe ran into trouble off the coast of Libya. One boat is confirmed to have sunk in choppy seas kicked up by strong winds from the Libyan interior.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM), told The New York Times that the capsized boat held 257 people, 23 of whom were rescued by workers on a nearby oil rig.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Mr. Chauzy said that several boats had left Libya in the past two days, each carrying hundreds of people, and that three may have sunk. A fourth was towed back to shore, with 356 migrants on board.
“The reality is that most of these people will have drowned,” Chauzy told the FT. “There is no safety equipment, there are no life boats. People are packed onto the boats in every inch of space.”
Agence-France Presse reports that the Libyan coast guard is currently looking for the other two boats, but that IOM officials caution that it is not clear “if these are fishing boats or had migrants on board.”
Libya has become an increasingly popular destination for poor migrants seeking passage to Europe, and for human traffickers willing to smuggle them there. For usually exorbitant sums, migrants can pay human traffickers to smuggle them to the small Italian island of Lampedusa on overloaded, unseaworthy ships.
Accidents are common, and many ships are simply abandoned at sea.
But if migrants do arrive on Lampedusa, they have a shot at traveling to other European countries thanks to open border agreements between EU member states.
According to the IOM, more than 37,000 were ferried to Lampedusa from points in North Africa in 2008.
Chauzy says that in past years, smugglers avoided making the journey in winter months, when cold weather and high winds made ships more likely to capsize. That trend is now over, though.
“It is no longer a seasonal trend. It’s ongoing,” Chauzy told The New York Times. “The arrivals on Lampedusa are regular.” Economic woes may behind that changing trend.
Despite a growing financial crisis and rising unemployment in Europe, emigration – either legal or illegal – it is still an alluring prospect for many Africans.
The Monitor has covered African migration to Europe in some depth over the past few years.
In December, we ran a story about how the small European island nation of Malta is becoming a way station for Africans coming to Europe.
This story from 2007, chronicles the dangerous sea voyage Somalis make to Yemen in search of a better life.
And in 2006, we ran this story from the other side of the African continent showing the changing routes West Africans were taking to get to Spain’s Canary Islands.
But now, the economic crisis may increase the flow of migrants into Europe.
In January, the International Labor Organization’s Global Employment Trends report warned that global unemployment in 2009 could rise by 17 million to 30 million workers.
The weight of that downturn falls heavily on the developing world, with as many as 200 million workers at risk of being pushed into “extreme poverty.”
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The  (IOM) stated that over 200 Arab and African migrants are feared drowned after three boats, bound for Europe, sank in the Mediterranean in separate incidents.

No less than 21 bodies were recovered on Tuesday when the boats capsized in heavy winds and rain near Libya's coast. 23 were rescued by workers on a oil rig close by.

"A boat with 257 migrants on board sank on Sunday off the coast of Libya. Twenty-three people were saved and 21 bodies were retrieved," said the IOM chief of mission in Libya's capital of Tripoli, Laurence Hart.

Officials say that search and rescue efforts are ongoing, but that hopes of finding any more survivors are diminishing. "It is hard to imagine that there are survivors among the missing by now," Hart said.

The people aboard the boats are suspected to have been smuggled across the sea to Italy. Libya's 1.770 kilometres of coastline is a popular point of departure for migrants hoping to escape poverty and find a better life in Europe.

"This is the beginning of the smuggling season in the Mediterranean. This tragic incident illustrates, once again, the dangers faced  by people caught in mixed irregular movements of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean and elsewhere which every year cost thousands of lives," said  (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond.

There has been a history of people-smuggling into Italy from Libya: almost 37,000 immigrants considered to have entered illegally landed in Italy in 2008, the Italian interior ministry reports. The figures are a 75% increase from the previous year.

Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni said that patrols on the sea would start on May 15 in an effort to curb the smuggling across the Mediterranean. "We have done everything possible to prevent arrivals. We have signed a deal with Libya and the Libyan government is committed to launch on May 15 patrols along the coasts with six vessels," he said. "Until then, we will continue to ask the Libyan authorities to intensify controls, but I guess that there will still be arrivals."