Migrant boat capsizes off Libya

The boat was carrying at least 200 migrants when it capsized Thursday near the northwestern port city of Zuwara, Libya's coast guard said.

"We have recovered 30 bodies so far and rescued dozens of people, with dozens more still missing," a coast guard official told AFP, adding that most of the migrants accounted for so far were of African origin.

A separate source quoted by Reuters said the boat was carrying around 400 people and that around half were feared drowned.

Rescue efforts continued into the evening and were expected to be stepped up early on Friday.

"We are working with very limited resources. Most of the boats we use are fishing boats that we borrow from their owners," the Libyan coast guard official said.

'No one is paying attention'

Also on Thursday, a Swedish coast guard ship docked at the Italian port of Palermo with 52 corpses that had been discovered on a wooden migrant boat off Libya one day earlier. More than 400 people were saved from the boat. They were among the more than 3,000 migrants rescued in the region on Wednesday.

"There are thousands and thousands of dead lying in the Mediterranean whose bodies will never be found, and no one is paying attention," Palermo's mayor, Leoluca Orlando, said.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and violence in Africa and the Middle East have sought to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, often in crowded rickety boats.

Libya is one of the main departure points for those migrants. Smuggling operations have flourished amid the chaos that has gripped the country since the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

According to figures from the International Organization for Migration, more than 2,300 migrants and refugees have died attempting the sea crossing this year alone - up from 1,779 in the same period of 2014.

Grim discovery

Meanwhile, European countries are struggling to cope with a record influx of refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Germany alone expects to receive 800,000 asylum applications this year. The western Balkans has also become a major route for migrants and refugees trying reach the EU.

As many as 50 migrants were found dead in an abandoned truck parked on the side of a highway in Austria near the Hungarian border on Thursday. Both countries have launched an investigation into the discovery, which came as European leaders were holding a summit on the refugee crisis in Vienna.

Amnesty International said EU indecisiveness was partly to blame for the loss of migrant lives.

"People dying in their dozens - whether crammed into a truck or a ship - en route to seek safety or better lives is a tragic indictment of Europe's failures to provide alternative routes," the human rights group said in a statement.

nm/lw (AFP, Reuters, AP)