The bodies of seven migrants were discovered today in a boat adrift off Libya while around 900 people were saved in operations in the southern Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard said. A Coastguard spokesman said the seven bodies were picked up by a boat under the command of a European Union naval force operating in the Mediterranean. Earlier this week, it intercepted 299 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries on two rubber boats east of Tripoli, officials said. Libya's western shoreline is the main departure point for migrants trying to reach Europe by boat, many of them fleeing conflict or poverty. The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that between January and October, 111,397 migrants had reached Italy by boat against 159,427 in the same period in 2016.

Source: Libya Today November 01, 2017 20:48 UTC