126 refugees killed in boat wreck ahead of World Refugee Day

126 refugees killed in boat wreck ahead of World Refugee Day. June. 21, 2017 08:32. by Eun-A Cho achim@donga.com.

It has reported that at least 126 refugees were killed in boat wreck off Libya last week on Tuesday ahead of World Refugee Day. It was all the more tragic due to the fact that their deaths were caused by smuggling brokers who removed the engine and left. Most of them were leaving their home land, Libya, as the country is in a state of civil war.


The International Organization for Migration announced on Monday that a rubber dinghy packed with refugees sank after it took on water off Libya as the engine stopped and of the estimated 130 people on board, 126 died. They were on board the smuggled boat and most of them were Sudanese.

A passing Libyan fishing vessel rescued four survivors— two Sudanese and two Nigerians and put them on other boat of smuggled migrants. They later arrived at Palermo port, North coast of Sicily, Italy. They told the Italian authority that the boat sank right after the crew removed the engine and left in other boat, leaving their boat.

According to Aljazeera, an Arabic broadcaster, Libyan criminal gangs target refugee boats heading to Italy to snatch and steal engine and main components for money. Hence, innocent refugees are exposed to the crime and victimized. The Associated Press reported that Italian coast guard ship rescued a total of nearly 1,100 rescued migrants in the central Mediterranean in the past few days. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands of migrants landed in Italian shores to avoid war and poverty.