Over 70 migrants die after traffickers deliberately remove engine from boat

The Libyan Red Crescent say that the bodies of at least 74 dead migrants have been found on a Libyan beach in the northwestern city of Zawiya.

A spokesperson for the Libyan Red Crescent has said that local residents discovered a boat stranded on the beach containing the human remains of migrants. Photographers have posted images to Twitter of dozens of bodies lined up on the beach, wrapped in white and black body bags. All, except three, of the migrants were reported to be male. [caption id="attachment_258793" align="aligncenter" width="653"] Photo: IFRC MENA / Twitter[/caption] The humanitarian group indicated on their Facebook page that the remains will be transported to a cemetery in the Libyan capital of Tripoli,

"We intervened after being alerted [to the situation] by local residents. Our volunteers went to Harcha near Zawiya (45km west of Tripoli) to recover the bodies of 74 migrants."

A UN agency, the International Organisation of Migration, told Sky News that a dinghy had departed on Saturday with 110 people on board. A spokesman for the IOM, Joel Millman, told the news channel that traffickers had deliberately removed the engines from the boat and abandoned it to drift,

"This is not a only horrible number of deaths in one incident but it strikes us as something that we haven't really seen much of, which is either deliberate punishment or murder of migrants."

Six years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains a country in chaos and a major crossroad for illegal immigration to Europe. Migrants frequently attempt to make the 300 kilometre journey from west Libya to Italy. The drownings and casualties resulting from shipwrecks have multiplied in recent years, with fatalities now numbering in the thousands.