More than 60 migrants drown in shipwreck off Libya

More than 60 migrants have drowned in a shipwreck off Libya, an international migrant agency said on Saturday, another chapter in the unrelenting toll in the Mediterranean Sea as people in Africa flee famine, conflict and other upheavals for distant shores.

The International Organization for Migration in Libya said in a post on the social platform X that women and children were among the 61 migrants who died.

The boat had set off from the Libyan city of Zwara with about 86 people, the agency said, citing survivors of the shipwreck. It was unclear exactly when it began its voyage. The I.O.M. said “the central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.”

Earlier this year, at least 73 migrants died in another disaster off the Libyan coast. That episode involved a boat carrying at least 80 people that was believed to have departed from Qasr Alkayar, Libya, on Feb. 14, bound for Europe, the I.O.M. said at the time. Seven people survived, and 11 bodies were recovered, it said.

More than 28,000 Africans have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to I.O.M. data. Many set off for countries like Italy and Greece, in one of Europe’s most defining challenges.