Rescue efforts off Libya’s western coast have ended with a grim toll, after an inflatable boat carrying African migrants went down in the central Mediterranean, leaving at least 53 people dead or unaccounted for, including two infants, according to the U.N. migration agency.
The International Organization for Migration said the vessel left the coastal town of Zawaiya late Thursday night with 55 people on board. About six hours into the journey, the boat began filling with water and later capsized on Friday morning north of Zuwara.
Only two passengers survived. Both are Nigerian women who were pulled from the sea by Libyan authorities. One told rescuers she lost her husband in the disaster, while the other said her two babies did not survive, AP reported.
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“Trafficking and smuggling networks continue to exploit migrants along the central Mediterranean route,” the IOM said, noting that smugglers routinely rely on “unseaworthy boats” to move people out of conflict-torn Libya toward Europe.
Libya has become the main departure point for migrants escaping conflict and economic hardship across Africa and the Middle East. The country has remained deeply unstable since the NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that overthrew and killed longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, creating conditions that smugglers have used to their advantage.
According to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, the latest sinking pushes the number of people reported dead or missing on the central Mediterranean route this year to 484. In 2025, more than 1,300 migrants were recorded as dead or missing along the same corridor.
“These repeated incidents underscore the persistent and deadly risks faced by migrants and refugees attempting the dangerous crossing,” the agency said.
Smuggling rings have flourished amid Libya’s lawlessness, moving migrants across its vast borders with six neighboring countries before forcing them onto overcrowded and poorly equipped boats, often inflatable rubber vessels.
Those intercepted at sea and returned to Libya are typically placed in state-run detention facilities where abuses are widespread. U.N.-commissioned investigators have documented forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture in these centers, describing the practices as crimes against humanity.
In many cases, detainees are held while traffickers pressure relatives for money, only releasing the migrants once payments are made and another attempt to leave Libya is arranged.
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