42 migrants presumed dead after boat capsized off Libya, and only 7 rescued after 6 days adrift, UN says
Geneva — The United Nations said Wednesday that 42 migrants were missing and presumed dead after a rubber dinghy capsized off the coast of Libya, with only seven survivors rescued after six days adrift.
“Tragically, 42 people remain missing and presumed dead, including 29 from Sudan, eight from Somalia, three from Cameroon and two from Nigeria,” the UN International Organization for Migration said in a statement.
The seven survivors rescued were four Sudanese, two Nigerians and a Cameroonian, the press release added.
Libya, divided in two since a civil war broke out in 2011 following the ouster of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has become a huge landing point for migrants from across Africa and the Middle East trying to reach Europe on small boats. The UN IOM said in late October that since the start of 2025 alone, at least 527 people had died off the coast of Libya.
Libyan Red Crescent Society in Sabratha/Handout/REUTERS
Despite the lawlessness in Libya, which the State Department urges U.S. nationals to avoid due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnappings and armed conflict,” the Trump administration was in talks earlier this year with the U.N.-backed government that runs the western part of the country, based in the capital Tripoli, on the prospect of deporting migrants from the United States to the African nation.
