Around 12,000 migrants have arrived at reception centers in
Malta and Italy. An estimated 1,200 are missing and presumed dead, adding a
further human tragedy to the thousands killed in three months of fighting to
topple leader Muammar Qaddafi.
“It is estimated they have got a one in 10 chance of
perishing during that journey” across the Mediterranean, Melissa Fleming, chief
spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva
news briefing.
In a UNHCR camp in Tunisia, agency workers interviewed three
Ethiopian men who said they were among nine survivors from a boat that left
Tripoli on March 25 carrying 72 people.
The boat is believed to be one that was the subject of a
British newspaper report, which prompted NATO to say on Monday it was
investigating the claim it had not gone to the aid of a vessel even though it
had made contact with a NATO warship.
One of the Ethiopians interviewed said the boat ran out of
fuel, water and food, then drifted for more than two weeks before reaching a
beach back in Libya.
Military vessels had twice passed the 12-meter-long boat,
crowded to the point there was barely standing room, without stopping, he said.
The first boat refused a request to board and the second
just took photos, although he could not say where the vessels had come from.
“According to the refugees, when water ran out people drank
sea water and their own urine. They ate toothpaste. One by one people started
to die,” Fleming said, adding that after waiting a day or so, they decided they
had to drop the bodies into the sea.
The boat was among many believed to have left Libya without
a captain, leaving the migrants to do the navigation themselves.
“I have heard accounts that perhaps there has been a captain
for the first 100 meters or so and then a small boat will take the captain back
to shore. They provide the passengers with a compass and say ‘Lampedusa is in
that direction. Best of luck,”’ said Fleming, referring to the small southern
Italian island where many refugees have headed.
It eventually reached shore on a beach near Zliten, between
Tripoli and the Tunisian border where one woman died on the beach from exhaustion.
Ten surviving men walked to the town of Zliten, where they
were arrested, taken to a hospital and then a prison, where another survivor
died.
They were released from jail after Ethiopian friends in
Tripoli paid the prison $900. The survivors said they had also paid the
smugglers $800 to make the journey that cost so many their lives.
Some 750,000 people have fled Libya over land to neighboring
Egypt and Tunisia, which have borne the brunt of the crisis, according to the
UNHCR.
Thousands of displaced people now need a home and it
appealed to Western countries with capacity and space to accept more refugees
for resettlement.
“Only one percent of people who have left Libya have made it
to Europe, so we’re calling on European governments to show some solidarity,”
Fleming said.
