62 bodies recovered from Mediterranean’s worst tragedy this year

Libya’s Red Crescent said Friday its rescue workers had recovered the bodies of 62 migrants a day after one of the deadliest shipwrecks this year in the Mediterranean.

“Our Red Crescent teams have pulled 62 migrants” from the water since Thursday evening, the head of the unit Abdelmoneim Abu Sbeih said.

Eyewitnesses described harrowing scenes in the sea, in what a senior UN official called the “the worst Mediterranean tragedy” so far this year.

Fishermen told AFP they saw bodies as they waded through the wreckage searching for survivors: “There were bodies floating on the surface of the water where the boat went down.”

One survivor, Abdallah Osman, said the boat making the perilous journey from Libya started to fill with water about 90 minutes after setting out to sea on Wednesday night. Then its engine broke down.

Over the following six hours, men, women and children began to drown.

“Shortly after dawn, fishermen came out with their small boats and started taking us to shore, five at a time … That went on until nine in the morning,” he told AFP.

via AFP / The Guardian