It mentioned the boat, carrying round 80 migrants, reportedly departed from the village of Qasr al-Khayar, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli. The migrants have been heading to European shores, it mentioned.

Seven migrants survived the mishap and made it to Libyan shores, the U.N. mentioned, in “extraordinarily dire circumstances.” They have been taken to a hospital.

Tuesday’s shipwreck was the newest tragedy within the central Mediterranean Sea, a key route for migrants. The demise toll on that route has reached not less than 130 migrants this yr, IOM mentioned.

In 2022, greater than 1,450 migrants died, based on the IOM’s lacking migrants venture.

“This case is insupportable,” mentioned Safa Msehli, the group’s spokesperson. She known as on governments to extend search and rescue efforts and to “set up clear and protected disembarkation mechanisms in addition to protected and common pathways to migration.

Off Libya’s shores alone, not less than 529 migrants have been reported useless and 848 others lacking final yr, whereas over 24,680 have been intercepted and returned to the nation, based on the IOM.

Libya has lately emerged because the dominant transit level for migrants from Africa and the Center East making an attempt to make it to Europe. The oil-rich nation plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed rebellion that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Human traffickers lately have benefited from the chaos in war-torn Libya, smuggling in migrants throughout the desert nation’s prolonged borders with six nations. The migrants are then sometimes packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and set off on dangerous sea voyages.

European international locations have lately pushed Libyan authorities and the coast guard to detain and intercept migrants trying to cross to European shores.

Lots of those that have been intercepted and returned to Libya — together with girls and youngsters — are held in government-run detention facilities the place they undergo from abuse, together with torture, rape and extortion, based on rights teams.