Migrants rescued from a deflating dinghy in the Mediterranean have said 60 people died on their journey from Libya.
The struggling rubber vessel was spotted on Wednesday by the humanitarian rescue group SOS Mediterranee, on their ship Ocean Viking. The small boat had gone adrift after its motor broke.
Of the 25 people on board, all of whom were men, two people were unconscious and evacuated via helicopter by the Italian military for treatment.
The other 23 were in a serious condition, suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and burns from fuel, the charity added.
SOS Mediterranee spokesman Francesco Creazzo said 12 of the survivors were children and two of those not yet teenagers.
They were from Senegal, Mali and The Gambia, he added.
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The traumatised survivors were unable to give full accounts of what happened on the perilous journey, Mr Creazzo said, adding that the number of people presumed dead is unlikely to ever be verified.
The boat had departed from Zawiya, Libya, with about 85 people on board, including some women and at least one small child, the survivors told the charity.
The motor broke at some point after the departure and the dinghy had been adrift for more than one week, they said.
In a video distributed by SOS Mediterranee, one of the rescuers, Massimo, said: “These people saw many of the dear ones die.”
Later on Wednesday night, the Ocean Viking rescued another 113 people adrift off the coast of Libya in a wooden boat. They included six women and two children.
The UN International Organisation for Migration said that, not including deaths reported this week, 227 people had lost their lives while taking the perilous central Mediterranean route this year. That’s out of a total 279 deaths in the Mediterranean since 1 January.
A total of 19,562 people arrived in Italy using that route during the same period, it added.
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