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Rescuers announced Friday that they had recovered the bodies of 62 migrants who came from Lebanese waters off the Libyan coast a day after one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean this year.
Libyan coastguards rescued around 145 migrants on Thursday after their overloaded boat crashed in the east of the capital, near the port city of Khoms.
Aid agencies initially feared that many migrants had drowned, with the number of missing persons estimated to be more than 110 by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and fishermen reported that waters were full of floating bodies.
"Our Red Crescent teams have removed 62 migrants" from the water since Thursday night, Libyan Red Crescent Relief Unit head Abdelmoneim Abu Sbeih said Friday.
"The bodies are still floating on the shore, it is not possible to give a total number," he added.
According to the global charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), survivors said that about 400 people were on board during its fall.
One of the fishermen who was first on the scene to rescue the survivors said he discovered "bodies floating on the surface of the water where the boat had fallen."
The head of the United Nations refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, described the wreckage as "the worst Mediterranean tragedy this year."
Libyan navy spokesman, General Ayoub Kacem, said most of the rescued migrants were from Eritrea, although Palestinians and Sudanese are also part of the group waiting to be transferred to reception centers.
A member of the Libyan coastguard said the group "could not afford" to launch a search on the high seas and should "wait for the sea to be returned for the bodies to be found".
Local authorities collected and stored victims' bodies, but faced many problems and sought to find burial sites, according to a municipal source in Khoms.
& # 39; Traumatized & # 39;
The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, said he was "horrified" by the latest tragedy at sea.
"We need legal and safe channels for migrants and refugees – all migrants seeking a better life deserve safety and dignity," he tweeted.
The migrants had apparently gone to sea on three boats moored together, said Thursday to AFP Julien Raickman, head of the MSF mission, by phone.
Abdallah Osman, one of the survivors, recounted that his boat had started taking water about 90 minutes after his departure at sea in the hope of reaching Europe. "The Egyptian captain has decided to turn around," he said.
Osman, a 28-year-old Eritrean, said a pbading ship had found that his boat was in distress but had taken no action.
MSF nurse Anne-Cecilia Kjaer met survivors, some of whom had "swallowed a lot of seawater and suffered from respiratory problems".
"Many children could not swim, and even those who knew how to succumb to exhaustion," she said.
Kjaer said the migrants had already been "traumatized" by dangerous journeys through the desert where they had been "captured by traffickers, subjected to violence and torture and then watched their loved ones die at sea".
The capsizing occurred only a few weeks after the death of 68 migrants when a boat bound for Italy sank off Tunisia.
Before the last shipwreck, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the IOM said that 426 migrants had perished in the Mediterranean this year.
Amnesty International has criticized the European Union for the latest deaths.
"This high number represents a new low for European leaders and they have done everything to get the drawbridge up in Europe," he said, "but people are still risking their lives to come to Europe".
Libya, wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that killed President Moamer Kadhafi, has long been an important means of transit for migrants, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, who are desperate to reach Europe.
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