Tragic end for migrants who thought they had reached Italy after boat trip from Libya

Members of the Libyan Red Crescent help a woman who was aboard a boat that arrived to the shore of the Andalus district of the capital, Tripoli. Taha Jawashi / AFP

TRIPOLI // After several days at sea a boatful of migrants saw land, thinking it was Italy. Several drowned trying to swim ashore. But when the survivors reached dry land they found they were still in Libya.

The treacherous and futile journey by 80 mostly Senegalese migrants had begun in Sabratha in western Libya three days earlier, one survivor recounted.

After setting off, the boat was buffeted by rough seas and ran aground on a beach in Tripoli about 70 kilometres to the east.

“We thought we had already arrived in Italy,” one of the survivors said.

Witnesses said several people had jumped from the boat to try to reach the beach but were unable to swim and drowned.

Those who made it to the shore alive included two women - one pregnant - and a child, and they were all in shock.

The pregnant woman sat in tears on the beach next to what was believed to be the body of her brother. She was later hospitalised.

The Libyan Red Crescent said it had recovered the bodies of five passengers from the beach on Wednesday and taken 80 people to shelters.

According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 migrants and refugees died last year while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

* Agence France-Presse