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Libya: 20 immigrants 'die of thirst' in desert, 30 more missing in Mediterranean

June 30, 2022 at 4:00 pm

Migrants are found after dying of thirst at the Sahara desert region on 29 June 2022 in Libya [Libyan First Aid Service/Anadolu Agency]

20 bodies have been recovered by Libyan rescue services in the desert near the border with Chad, Reuters reports.

According to the report, the deceased were believed to have been migrants and were found around a black pick-up truck about 320 kilometres (200 miles) south-west of Kufra.

In a statement, the Libyan service said, “They all died of thirst.”

“The driver got lost … and we believe the group died in the desert about 14 days ago, since the last call on a mobile phone there was on 13 June,” Kufra ambulance chief, Ibrahim Belhasan, told the Reuters news agency.

According to the Missing Migrants Project which documents deaths and disappearances of people attempting to migrate, 24,234 people have gone missing since 2014 in the Mediterranean alone.

READ: Don’t send migrants back to unsafe countries, Pope says citing Libya