Libya Boat Disaster: 53 Migrants Dead or Missing

At least 53 migrants, including two babies, are dead or missing after a rubber boat capsized off the coast of Libya, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said Monday. The boat, carrying 55 people, overturned off Zuwara on Friday after departing from Zawiya on Thursday, according to survivors.

Migrant Deaths in the Mediterranean

Only two Nigerian women were rescued during a search-and-rescue operation by Libyan authorities. One survivor reported losing her husband, while the other said she lost her two babies in the tragedy, the IOM stated.

The latest incident brings the number of migrants reported dead or missing on the central Mediterranean route in 2026 to at least 484. More than 1,300 migrants have gone missing in the central Mediterranean so far in 2025, according to the UN agency.

In January alone, at least 375 migrants were reported dead or missing following multiple “invisible” shipwrecks amid extreme weather conditions, with hundreds more deaths believed to have gone unrecorded.

In mid-January, at least 21 migrant bodies were discovered in a mass grave in eastern Libya, with up to 10 survivors showing signs of torture before being freed from captivity, according to two security sources. Two additional security sources said that Libyan authorities freed more than 200 migrants from a secret prison in Kufra, where they had been held in inhuman conditions.

Libya has become a key transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty toward Europe since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Several countries, including Britain, Spain, Norway and Sierra Leone, urged Libya in November to shut down detention centres where rights groups say migrants and refugees have been tortured, abused and sometimes killed.