100 feared drowned in Mediterranean as week's toll rises to 340

A hundred migrants were feared drowned Thursday after yet another migrant shipwreck off the Libyan coast, raising the number of those thought to have drowned this week to 340.

More than 4,000 people have died so far this year trying to reach Europe, with worsening weather conditions making the risky journey even more dangerous.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which carries out rescue operations in the Mediterranean, said on Thursday that it believed around 100 people had drowned in the Mediterranean, according to 27 migrants who were plucked to safety and were brought to Italy.

The surviving group, all men, said they had set sail from a beach close to Tripoli before dawn on Monday. After several hours the traffickers travelling alongside them aboard a separate boat took away their engine and left them to their fate, without a satellite phone to call for help.

The overcrowded dinghy rapidly began taking on water and deflated. Tossed for two days and nights on rough seas, some passengers fell overboard, while others succumbed to exhaustion.

By the time the British military ship Enterprise - engaged in the anti-trafficking Sofia operation - found them, there were just 27 people still alive, clinging to what was left of the dinghy.

'Exhausted, traumatised'

Once rescued by the Enterprise the migrants, who come from Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone, were transferred to the MSF's Bourbon Argos, along with six bodies retrieved from around the dinghy.

"They are exhausted, shocked and traumatised," MSF coordinator Michele Delaro told AFP by telephone from on board the Bourbon Argos rescue ship.

'They are exhausted, shocked and traumatised'

- Michele Delaro, MSF

The shipwreck was just the latest in a series of tragedies this week: on Monday, 15 people were rescued from a dinghy that had been carrying some 150 people, while on Tuesday 23 were found on another boat that initially had 122 aboard.

Rescuers had pulled nine bodies from the water on Wednesday and spotted a tenth, but were unable to recover it.

The first 15 survivors were brought to Catania and spoke of their battles to hold on to anything that floated as their dinghy sank.

The 23 people rescued on Tuesday were transferred to the Aquarius, charted by SOS Mediterranee and MSF, and expected to arrive in the port of Reggio Calabria on Italy's mainland on Friday.

Search for the missing 

"They are mostly traumatised and suffering from anxiety attacks," said Mathilde Auvillain, a spokesperson for SOS Mediterranee.

"One young boy has been weeping, asking for his mother. Another has written a list of names of the people travelling with him and re-reads it over and over. He wants to know if his friends are on the boat or in the sea," she said.

'One young boy has been weeping, asking for his mother. Another has written a list of names of the people travelling with him and re-reads it over and over'

- Mathilde Auvillain, SOS Mediterranee

Over 3,200 people have been rescued from crowded and unseaworthy dinghies since Saturday, according to the Italian coast guard.

The total is the same as for the whole month of November 2015 and shows that worsening weather conditions in the Mediterranean are not dettering departures from Libya.

Since the start of the year, over 167,000 people have been brought to safety in Italy, a figure that has already passed the 153,000 number recorded in 2015 and is closing in on the 170,000 total for 2014.

"The unending rescues and high number of victims in recent days show how critical the situation is in the Mediterranean: it is a real humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place before our eyes", said Sophie Beau, head of SOS Mediterranee.

"Europe urgently needs to take responsibility and put in place an adequate response" to the crisis, she said.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.