Eleven bodies sighted off Libya, with deaths rising even as fewer people cross

A monitoring plane run by SOS Méditerranée and the Humanitarian Pilots Initiative sighted eleven bodies in an advanced state of decomposition on Friday, around 57 nautical miles or 105 kilometres from the Libyan coastal city of Zuwarah. The Italian coast guard says it notified Libyan authorities because the bodies lay in Libya's search and rescue zone. The IOM said this week that 821 people died or went missing in the central Mediterranean in the first four months of the year, a rise of 111 percent on 2025, while arrivals on the same route fell 46 percent to 8,577.

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