Nine bodies of migrants have been recovered over the past two days from the shores of an eastern suburb of Tripoli after their boat capsized, the Tripoli branch of the Red Crescent has announced.
The bodies were recovered from Tajoura, a locality located about 22 kilometers east of Tripoli. According to local authorities in Tajoura, the boat was carrying around 19 people at the time it capsized. The Tripoli Red Crescent fears more bodies may still wash ashore in the coming days, since not all of the boat’s occupants have been found.
Muad Zurgani, media officer for the Tripoli Red Crescent, told Reuters that search and recovery operations are continuing in coordination with the relevant authorities, under field conditions that require continuous effort.
This shipwreck comes amid a particularly deadly stretch on this migration route in recent days. On August 14, the crew of the Albatross UNO surveillance aircraft, jointly operated by the NGOs SOS Méditerranée and Humanitarian Pilots Initiative, discovered eleven bodies in an advanced state of decomposition floating at sea, roughly 57 nautical miles off the Libyan coastal town of Zuwara. Some of the bodies still had clothing on, while others appeared to be kept afloat by inner tubes, according to the NGO’s statement, which described the scene as particularly harrowing.
The next day, three additional bodies were spotted at sea by the Seabird 1 aircraft operated by the German NGO Sea-Watch and the organization ResQship. Then, two days later, another shipwreck off Libya left seven people dead, while 50 migrants were rescued, two of them in serious condition, according to Agence France-Presse.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1,668 migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea during the first half of 2026, a sharply higher figure than the same period in 2025. SOS Méditerranée puts the toll at at least 872 people dead or missing in the Central Mediterranean since the start of the year, a 24 percent increase compared with the same period in 2025, when at least 702 deaths had been recorded.
The NGO points to a paradox. While arrivals of migrants in Italy have fallen by 56 percent, that drop has not made the crossing any safer. The estimated death rate now stands at nearly 3 percent, or roughly one person dead or missing for every 35 people attempting the crossing. Fewer departures, in other words, does not necessarily mean fewer deaths for those who still take to the sea.
SOS Méditerranée attributes this rising death toll to European policy choices: states stepping back from search and rescue responsibilities, the criminalization of operations carried out by civilian NGOs, and continued support, through funding, training and equipment, given to the Libyan coast guard, which the organization says makes the crossing even more dangerous for those trying to reach Europe.
Since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in the NATO backed uprising of 2011, Libya has become a major transit point for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty who attempt to reach Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and then the Mediterranean Sea.
