At least two migrants died and around 25 others were missing after their inflatable boat capsized off the western Libyan coast, a spokesman for the coastguard said on Sunday, Trend reports citing Reuters.
A total of 73 migrants were picked up by a coastguard patrol about 14 miles off Qarabulli town, some 49 km (30.5 miles) east of the capital Tripoli, spokesman Ayoub Qassem said.
The bodies of a woman and a child were recovered, he added.
The migrants included 40 men, 25 women and eight children from Sudan, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
“A wrecked and inflatable boat was found without an engine and the illegal migrants were found clinging to it,” Qassem said.
According to the UN migration agency IOM, 2,297 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean last year out of a total of 116,959 people who reached Europe by sea.
