{"id":29765,"date":"2016-10-27T02:53:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T02:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/twenty-nine-dead-bodies-found-on-crowded-refugee\/"},"modified":"2016-10-27T03:09:25","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T03:09:25","slug":"twenty-nine-dead-bodies-found-on-crowded-refugee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/twenty-nine-dead-bodies-found-on-crowded-refugee\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-nine dead bodies found on crowded refugee boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

{French aid group rescues 107 people off Libya’s coast as death toll on Mediterranean this year reaches 3,800.}<\/p>\n

The bodies of 29 people, who perished in a pool of fuel and seawater on a crowded dinghy off Libya, have been found by the French aid group Doctors without Borders (MSF).<\/p>\n

MSF said its chartered rescue ship, the Bourbon Argos, picked up 107 people aboard the inflatable boat 26 nautical miles off Libya on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Its crew initially counted 11 corpses on the dinghy’s floor, which was flooded with a murky mixture of fuel and seawater. The Bourbon Argos was then called away to another rescue operation nearby, saving 139 people aboard another vessel. <\/p>\n

The crew returned to the dinghy and found 29 people had died, probably from suffocation, skin burns or drowning.<\/p>\n

The bodies were retrieved from the toxic mixture over a period of hours, with the help of a team from the German NGO Sea-Watch.<\/p>\n

“The mixture of water and fuel was so foul that we could not stay on the boat for long periods. It was horrible,” MSF project leader Michele Telaro said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Twenty-three survivors suffered burns from exposure to fuel, 11 of whom were seriously hurt. Seven survivors were taken to hospital, two of them by helicopter.<\/p>\n

‘Headlong rush to the cemetery’<\/p>\n

The find adds to the grim evidence of the hazards of crossing the Mediterranean – a journey that the UN said on Wednesday has claimed more than 3,800 lives so far this year.<\/p>\n

To venture out to sea in such conditions, said Tefano Argenziano, in charge of MSF’s migrant assistance activities, “is a headlong rush to the cemetery”.<\/p>\n

In a separate incident, more than 90 people were believed to be missing after their boat sank off the coast of western Libya, according to a coastguard spokesman. <\/p>\n

Ayoub Qassem said coastguards had rescued 29 people about 26 miles off the shore east of Tripoli.<\/p>\n

Survivors said 126 people had been on the rubber boat before one of the sides was ripped and it started taking on water.<\/p>\n

Libya is the main departure point for mostly African refugees and migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.<\/p>\n

The route between Libya and Italy has become the busiest crossing point after a deal between Turkey and the EU in March largely closed off pathways to Greece. <\/p>\n

Smugglers arrange ill-equipped and overcrowded vessels that frequently break down or sink. They often send groups with just enough fuel to reach international waters and be picked up by international rescue vessels. <\/p>\n

\"Libya<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{French aid group rescues 107 people off Libya’s coast as death toll on Mediterranean this year reaches 3,800.} The bodies of 29 people, who perished in a pool of fuel and seawater on a crowded dinghy off Libya, have been found by the French aid group Doctors without Borders (MSF). MSF said its chartered rescue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29765"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29765"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}