At least 110 people have died or gone missing after two boats carrying mostly Sudanese refugees sunk off the coast of Tobruk, Libya.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Libya said Wednesday evening that only 13 people survived after a vessel carrying 74 people, mostly Sudanese refugees, capsized Sunday off the coast of Tobruk.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported another shipwreck that occurred on Saturday, in which at least 50 people died "after a vessel carrying 75 Sudanese refugees caught fire off Libya's coast".
Increasing numbers of migrants have been departing from Tobruk, in northeastern Libya, in an attempt to reach Greece.
The European border agency Frontex called it "a new migratory corridor", and the IOM has categorised it as "one of the world's most dangerous migration routes".
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War in Sudan
After the latest tragedy, the IOM called for "urgent action… to end such tragedies at sea".
Noting the nationalities of the victims, the UNHCR called for an end to the war in Sudan.
"Because safe and legal pathways are available to only a very small number of people, the real solution is to end the war in Sudan so families can return home in safety and not take these dangerous journeys," the agency wrote.
The Sudanese army has been at war since April 2023 with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and displaced over 13 million people. It has been called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Libya became a migration transit route after the fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
As of February 2025, around 867,055 migrants from 44 nationalities were living in Libya, according to IOM data, and since the start of the year, 456 people have died and 420 went missing on the maritime route.
