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| Migrant boat capsizes off Libya's Mediterranean coast | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Up to 30 people are feared dead after a shipwreck off Libya, the EU’s naval force has said, adding that 50 people have been rescued from the waves. | |
| “We estimate the dead to be between 20 and 30 people,” Captain Antonello de Renzis Sonnino, spokesman for the EU’s Sophia military operation to combat people smugglers in the Mediterranean, told AFP. | |
| “A Luxembourg reconnaissance plane spotted a capsized boat around 35 nautical miles off the Libyan coast with about 100 migrants in the water or clinging to the sinking vessel,” he said. | |
| The Spanish frigate Reina Sofia and Italian coastguard headed for the scene and threw life-floats and jackets to those in the water. | |
| “Unfortunately there were bodies too,” De Renzis Sonnino said, adding that the rescue operation was still ongoing. | |
| In a photograph posted by Eunavfor Med on Twitter, people could be seen waving their arms for help as they balanced perilously on the deck of the boat, already underwater but clearly visible in the sea. | |
| #opSophia the @Armada_esp frigate #ReinaSofia now rescuing these #migrants spotted by #SW3Merlin3 aircraft... pic.twitter.com/TZOngzwF7v | |
| On Wednesday a migrant boat overturned, leaving five people dead. A bout of good weather as summer arrives has kicked off a fresh stream of boats attempting to cross from Libya to Italy. | |
| The survivors will be added to the list of nearly 40,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy’s southern ports so far this year. |