According to the UN Migration Agency IOM, 601 migrans were intercepted at sea and brought back to Libya by the Libyan coast guard in the period between June 25 and July 1.

Five separate boats were intercepted in total, bringing 551 men, 44 women and six children back to the country. In addition, five dead bodies were found and retrieved on June 27, 28, 29 and July 1, the agency said in an update on Twitter.

The first interception took place on June 27, notes the agency, when 135 migrants were brought back to Tripoli. A day later, on June 28, 358 migrants were brought back to the Libyan capital, and two days after that on June 30, a boat carrying 108 migrants was retrieved and taken back to Tripoli.

The dead bodies were retrieved more in the east of the country and taken back to Sirt and Ras Lanouf and Benghazi, notes the agency.

8,496 migrants intercepted since January

Since the beginning of the year, 8,496 migrants have been intercepted at sea and brought back to Libya. Some migrants report going through this process several times before they board a boat that either makes it to Europe or is picked up at sea by the Italian coast guard or a private rescue organization.

In 2022, throughout the whole year 24,684 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya. There were also 529 deaths recorded and 848 people reported missing. In 2021, even more migrants were returned to Libya, 32,425. During that year, the IOM recorded 662 deaths on the central Mediterranean route and 891 missing persons.

In the first six months of this year, from January 1 to July 1, the death and missing person toll has been even higher than during the whole of either 2021 or 2022. The IOM has recorded that 780 people have died on the central Mediterranean route so far this year, and 944 people have been reported missing.

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Trend indicates rising death toll

Of those brought back to Libya so far this year, 5,644 of them were men, 401 of them were women and 186 of them were children. The IOM had "no available gender data" on 2,265 of the migrants.

The IOM states that "figures on maritime incidents in the central Mediterranean route are estimates based on initial reports at the time of each incident."

The numbers of deaths on the eastern and western Mediterranean routes have also been greater this year, with a total of 1,871 recorded as dead or missing by the IOM Missing Migrants project in the first half of this year. As a comparison, for the whole of 2022 across all three parts of the Mediterranean, 2,406 people were recorded as dead or missing.

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