The Libyan Red Crescent announced on Saturday the drowning of at least four people after two boats carrying 95 irregular migrants capsized off the coast of the coastal city of Khums on Thursday.
The Red Crescent explained in a statement published on its official "Facebook" page that the first boat was carrying 26 migrants from Bangladesh, four of whom died, while the second boat was carrying 69 migrants, including two Egyptians and a number of Sudanese, without confirming their fate so far. The city of Khums is located about 118 kilometers east of the capital, Tripoli. 
The statement pointed out that the Red Crescent's emergency team participated in the rescue operation in cooperation with the Coast Guard and Port Security in Khums, taking responsibility for retrieving the bodies of the victims and providing first aid to the survivors, where the photos showed the presence of a row of bodies in black plastic bags and migrants covered by volunteers with thermal blankets after their rescue. Libya, since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, has been a dangerous transit point for migrants fleeing conflicts and poverty towards Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, where the International Organization for Migration recently recorded a series of drowning incidents, including the capsizing of a boat near the Bouri oil field northwest of the Libyan coast in mid-October, which resulted in the loss of 42 migrants. 
Several countries, including Britain, Spain, Norway and Sierra Leone, urged Libya at a United Nations meeting in Geneva to close detention centers, where human rights groups say migrants and refugees are subjected to torture, ill-treatment and sometimes murder, stressing the need to protect the lives of migrants and reduce these recurring maritime tragedies. 
