At least four people have died after two boats carrying close to 100 migrants capsized off the Libyan coast on Saturday, according to rescue workers.
The Libyan Red Crescent confirmed that all known victims so far were passengers on a vessel carrying 26 Bangladeshi nationals. The group did not say whether additional deaths occurred on a second boat, which sank while transporting roughly 70 migrants, most of them from Sudan.
Both vessels were attempting to cross the central Mediterranean, a route between North Africa and Italy that the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) describes as the deadliest migration pathway in the world. The boats had departed from Al Khums, a port city in northwestern Libya, the IOM said.
Images released by the Red Crescent showed its teams treating survivors and several black body bags laid out on the ground.
Hundreds die each year attempting the dangerous journey to southern Europe aboard overcrowded, unseaworthy boats. More than 1,500 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean so far in 2025, IOM data shows — nearly a third of them off Libya’s coast.
Libya remains the main point of departure for people attempting the central Mediterranean crossing. According to Frontex, the EU border agency, the country accounted for most of the nearly 59,000 arrivals in Europe via this route in 2025.
The disaster comes just days after another tragedy: a boat that departed Libya capsized earlier in the week, leaving dozens missing and presumed dead. Only seven survivors — from Sudan, Somalia, Cameroon and Nigeria — were rescued after drifting at sea for almost a week.
