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146 feared dead after boat capsizes in Mediterranean: UN

Refugees wait to disembark in the port of Catania, on the island of Sicily on March 21, 2017 from the ship "Aquarius" following a rescue operation in the Mediterranean sea, where some 946 refugees have been rescued. (Photo by AFP)

A rubber boat packed with refugees has sank in the Mediterranean, with the presumed sole survivor saying that he believes all other passengers drowned, the International Migration Organization (IOM) says.

The 16-year-old Gambian boy told United Nations officials that about 150 were on board when the ship capsized off Libya earlier this week.

The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that some 146 refugees, among them children and several pregnant women, were feared missing after the capsizing.

The agency said the Gambian was interviewed in a hospital in the Italian island of Lampedusa after he was spotted almost by accident by a Spanish military ship sailing in the Mediterranean as part of a European Union operation to crack down on smugglers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the Spanish ship had found the man while he was desperately holding on a fuel can to survive.

The Gambian told a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the refugee vessel, which left on Sunday or Monday from Sabratha, western Libya, began taking on water a few hours after setting off. He said passengers included refugees from Nigeria, Mali and The Gambia.

"He said that everyone else died. But there's some hope that the Italian Coast Guard picked up others," said IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo in Rome, after speaking to staff in Lampedusa. He added that it should become clear on Thursday whether others survived, as a Coast Guard vessel disembarks refugees in eastern Sicily that day.

Many refugees have dared the risky journey through the Central Mediterranean from Libya to Italy over the past months. Smugglers have also benefited from the chaos and lawlessness in Libya to dispatch more people on board unsafe dinghies.

More than 23,000 refugees have managed to make it to the Italian shores since the beginning of 2017, Italian authorities say. The IOM says 590 refugees have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, without considering the figure from the recent disaster.


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