Hundreds missing after overcrowded boat from Libya capsizes

Nima Elbagir and Jomana Karadsheh -

Somali migrant worker Ibrahim Abdi has cheated death twice trying to get from north Africa to Europe.

He boarded a boat bound for Italy last month, only to see it sink April 26.

The next week he climbed aboard another ship. That boat capsized in Tripoli's harbor Friday. Abdi survived that wreck as well.

But he is one of very few lucky ones.

Hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of African migrants have drowned or disappeared at sea trying to flee Libya for Europe in overcrowded boats that are not seaworthy, reports from refugee agencies suggest.

Hundreds of people are missing after the ship Abdi was on went down last Friday, while 250 people died in a shipwreck at the beginning of April, and two boats with 480 people between them have simply vanished, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

UNCHR is "actively discouraging" migrants from boarding boats for Europe, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the agency, said Tuesday.

The agency is "stressing the perils of the journey, both inside Libya and on the Mediterranean," while urging third countries to accept refugees for resettlement.

Fifty-four Somalis trying to escape Libya are among hundreds dead or presumed dead in the shipwreck Friday, the Somali ambassador to Libya said Tuesday.

Abdelghani Mohamed Oweys said the boat that capsized off the coast of Tripoli was carrying more than 600 asylum seekers of various Arab and African nationalities -- 240 of whom were Somali.

Ibrahim Abdi, the Somali migrant who has twice tried to get to Europe, said there were 750 people on the ship that went down Friday.

Refugees who arrived on other boats the following day in Lampedusa -- an island south of mainland Italy -- reported seeing hundreds of people thrown into the water from the capsized boat, said Laura Boldrini, spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Italy.

Boldrini said 16 bodies had been pulled out of the water from the Tripoli harbor. The total number of casualties is unknown.

"From what refugees are telling us, the Libyan authorities are facilitating the departures of non-Libyan citizens from Libyan coasts," Boldrini said. "Refugees are not considered at all as humans. Trips are organized on unlikely vessels, and they leave Libya without considering the weather forecast."

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