Boat with Sudanese migrants capsizes off Libya, leaving at least 17 dead, UN says

CAIRO (AP) — A boat carrying 33 Sudanese migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea near the eastern Libyan town of Tobruk, leaving at least 17 people dead and nine others missing, U.N. officials said Thursday.

Only seven of the people on board survived the shipwreck, the U.N. refugee agency said on X.

It was unclear when the boat capsized.

The U.N. International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said that when the survivors were rescued, they had been stranded at sea for several days, and that some of the migrants had died of hunger and thirst.

The boat had taken off from Tobruk and was heading to Greece when it capsized about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of the city, the IOM said. The agency said rescue operations were carried out by the navy, the Libyan coast guard and the Libyan Red Crescent.

The Libyan Red Crescent posted photos Thursday of the rescue showing crew members moving several bodies in black bags.

The medical conditions of the survivors were not immediately known.

Libya has been a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country plunged into chaos after a 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Earlier this month, more than 80 migrants went missing after a boat that departed a Libyan coastal town capsized in the central Mediterranean.

The IOM said in early April that 2026 had seen the deadliest start to a year for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea since 2014. In the Central Mediterranean alone, 765 people had been reported dead, marking about a 150% increase compared with the same period last year.

IOM Director General Amy Pope told The Associated Press earlier this month that the agency is seeing a growing number of migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan on boats in the Mediterranean.