Nearly 650 migrants trying to reach European shores were intercepted by the coastguard off the city of Benghazi, the eastern Libyan navy headquarters announced on its Facebook page on Saturday.
“
Navy special forces boats intercepted a trawler with nearly 650 illegal migrants on board
,” he said in a statement.
The boat was towed and taken to a special forces naval base in the port of Benghazi, according to the same source.
According to Navy Commander Ramzi Najem, quoted in the statement, "
Navy special forces were alerted to the presence of illegal migrants on board a trawler northwest of Benghazi
", carrying several hundred people , including Bangladeshis, Syrians and Egyptians.
The chaos that followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011 made Libya a favored route for tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Arab countries and South Asia seeking to reach the Europe by the Italian coasts.
While the vast majority of boats have so far left from western Libya, we can see that departures have multiplied recently from the beaches in the east of the country, often on board trawlers and large fishing boats. .
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Migrants who attempt to cross the Mediterranean at the risk of their lives fall prey to unscrupulous traffickers and, when intercepted, are brought back to the Libyan coast and placed in detention centers regularly denounced by NGOs for bad treatments.