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The Libyan Red Crescent announced Friday that its rescuers had found the bodies of 62 migrants one day after one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean this year.
"Our Red Crescent teams have removed 62 migrants" from the water since Thursday evening, said the head of the unit, Abdelmoneim Abu Sbeih.
Humanitarian agencies announced Thursday that more than 100 migrants were missing after the sinking of an overcrowded boat off the Libyan coast, east of the capital, near the port city of Khoms.
The Libyan coastguards rescued around 145 migrants. The fishermen claimed that the waters were full of floating bodies.
"The bodies are still floating on the shore, it is not possible to give a total number," added Abu Sbeih.
Local authorities collected and stored the bodies until burials could be found, a municipal source in Khoms said.
According to the charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the migrants apparently had gone to sea aboard three boats moored together.
Survivors had reported the presence of nearly 400 people on board, told AFP the head of the MSF mission, Julien Raickman.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, described the wreckage as "the worst Mediterranean tragedy this year."
The capsizing occurred only a few weeks after the death of 68 migrants when a boat bound for Italy sank off Tunisia.
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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