Doctors without Borders recovered the bodies of 11 people over the weekend in a search and rescue operation that lasted for more than nine hours.
Doctors without Borders (MSF) recovered 11 bodies and rescued hundreds of people off the coast of Libya on Friday (June 7), the aid organization said in a statement.
The rescue operation was prompted by an alert from the German humanitarian organization Sea-Watch.
During a monitoring flight, Sea-Watch located bodies floating in international waters northeast of Zawiya, Libya.
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On Saturday (June 8), Sea-Watch reported the discovery of another body, bringing the total number of fatalities to 12.
The organization reported that their attempts to contact Libya’s coastguard to retrieve the dead went unanswered.
According to Sea-Watch, it could not be determined if the bodies recovered by MSF were the ones they had sighted by air during their monitoring flight.
Additionally, Sea-Watch reported that it was uncertain how many more bodies were in the area and called on authorities to conduct a large-scale search to find and identify remaining bodies, determine the cause of death, and notify the bereaved for repatriation.
"Authorities must launch a large-scale search operation for further bodies to be recovered. Above all, however, we must put an end to letting people die. We are flying over a mass grave politically created by Europe," Tamino Böhm, head of the Sea-Watch Airborne Operations mission, said in an emailed statement.
The Geo Barents, MSF's rescue vessel, also reportedly took over 160 people on board during a rescue mission. The Geo Barents was reportedly directed to transport the passengers and disembark at a port in northern Genoa, located some 650 nautical miles (1,200 km) from their original position.
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After the events of the weekend, MSF and Sea Watch called for safer, legal migration routes to prevent further loss of life in the Mediterranean.
"As we cannot determine the reason behind this tragedy, we know that people will continue to take dangerous routes in a desperate attempt to reach safety," MSF posted on their X account.