By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The coast guard on Friday announced that it arrested a vessel carrying at least 700 migrants off the eastern coast of Libya, off the Mediterranean town of Moura, 90 kilometers west of the eastern city of Benghazi.
This is believed to be one of the largest interceptions in recent months of migrants seeking a better life in Europe through the North African country ravaged by war.
The coast guard in a statement said the migrants hail from different countries, and that those who illegally entered Libya would be handed over to their home countries.
It did not however provide further details in the statement.
The coast guard posted images on Facebook showing a large, overcrowded vessel with most of those on board appearing to be young people.
In August last year, Italian military vessels aided a boat crammed with 539 migrants off the southern island of Lampedusa. The boat was launched from Libyan shores.
Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe, a destination for many Africans fleeing poverty and political crisis.
Libya, an oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders with six nations.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported 1,522 dead or missing migrants in the Mediterranean this year.
Overall, the IOM says 24,871 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, with the real number believed to be even higher given the number of shipwrecks that never get reported.
