880 people died crossing Mediterranean in 1 week, UNHCR says
Shipwrecks and capsizing over the past week have left at least 880 migrants and refugees dead in the central Mediterranean route, according to the UN refugee agency.
The casualties occurred in three separate shipwrecks on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The largest number of missing and presumed dead -- 400 to 550 -- was aboard a wooden fishing boat being towed by another smugglers' boat from Libya.
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Over the weekend, 47 people went missing after a raft deflated off Libya, eight others were lost overboard from another boat and four deaths were reported after fire aboard another.
"Thus far 2016 is proving to be particularly deadly. Some 2,510 lives have been lost so far compared to 1,855 in the same period in 2015 and 57 in the first five months of 2014," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said.
A total of 204,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean since the start of the year.
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The UN refugee agency said overcrowded boats, carrying up to 600 passengers, are leaving from the Sebratah area to the west of Tripoli, Libya. The recent increase in numbers may be linked to efforts by smugglers to maximise income before the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
"At the moment (smugglers) are packing people on boats that are barely sea-worthy and many cases are not meant to make the crossing. What happens is as soon as they depart from shore they call for rescuers and then rescue services come and rescue them," Spindler said.
"It's a race against time to get there before the boats sink, in some cases it gets there too late."
However, there has not been a significant change of nationalities among people trying to cross the Mediterranean via the Libyan route. "UNHCR has not seen evidence of significant diversion of Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis from the Turkey-Greece route to the Central Mediterranean one," it said.
At least 26 Syrians were among the survivors last week, but they had been living in Libya for years.
Among those rescued were Nigerians, Gambians, Somalis and Eritreans.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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