Fifty-three migrants, including two babies, drown after a rubber boat carrying fifty-five people capsized off the coast of Libya. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) releases data on the sheer number of migrants reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year:
By Linda Bordoni
Only two Nigerian women were rescued by Libyan search and rescue operators. One said she had lost her husband in the tragedy, the other said she had lost two babies.
They said the rubber dinghy overturned off the coastal Libyan town of Zuwara just six hours after its departure and immediately took on water.
IOM data show that in January alone, at least 375 migrants were reported dead or missing following multiple “invisible” shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean amid extreme weather, with hundreds more deaths believed to be unrecorded.
These repeated incidents highlight the persistent and deadly risks faced by migrants and refugees attempting the dangerous crossing.
The U.N. agency also said that more than 1,300 migrants have gone missing in the Central Mediterranean in 2025, and that “The latest incident brings the number of migrants reported dead or missing on the route since the beginning of this year to at least 484.
The Libyan route one is one of the main transit routes for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe. It is a journey riddled with perils across the desert and across the Mediterranean Sea.
Pope: Migrants are brothers and sisters
In a video message in September, Pope Leo XIV thanked the people and infrastructures on the island of Lampedusa, where many migrant boats find port, for their gestures of hospitality to migrants as an example of an intangible cultural heritage that must be protected.
Migrants are not enemies – he said – only brothers and sisters, and Christians must continue to insist there is no justice without compassion, no legitimacy without listening to the pain of others.
(Source: IOM, Reuters and other agencies)
