CAIRO (AP) — The Latest on migrants from Libya (all times local):
3:15 p.m.
The U.N. migration agency says a boat carrying 86 migrants from Libya sank in the Mediterranean overnight, and just three people on board survived, with 82 missing.
The shipwreck late Wednesday off the Tunisian city of Zarzis came a day after a deadly airstrike on a Libyan detention center that killed at least 44 migrants.
Tunisian fishermen came across the sinking boat and were able to pull out four men, but could not find any of the other passengers on the boat, said Lorena Lando, head of the International Organization for Migration in Tunisia. One of the four, a man from Ivory Coast, died overnight and the other three remained hospitalized.
Earlier this week, another boat from Libya made it to the Tunisian port of Sfax with 65 people on board.
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12:30 p.m.
Migrants who survived the deadly airstrike on a Libyan detention center say they had been conscripted by a local militia to work in an adjacent weapons workshop.
Two migrants told The Associated Press on Thursday that for months they were sent day and night to a workshop inside the Tajoura detention center, which housed hundreds of African migrants.
A young migrant who has been held for nearly two years at Tajoura says “we clean the anti-aircraft guns. I saw a large amount of rockets and missiles too.”
The migrants spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Libya’s warring parties are trading accusations for Wednesday’s strike, which killed at least 44 migrants.
Aid agencies say even after the strikes, there is no plan for evacuating the facility.
Debris covers the ground and an emergency vehicle after an airstrike at a detention center in Tajoura, east of Tripoli in Libya, Wednesday, July 3, 2019. An airstrike hit the detention center for migrants early Wednesday, killing several. (AP Photo/Hazem Ahmed)
