42 migrants presumed dead after boat sinks off Libya, and only 7 rescued after 6 days adrift, UN says

Geneva — The United Nations said Wednesday that 42 migrants were missing and presumed dead after a rubber boat sank off the coast of Libya, and only seven survivors were rescued after six days adrift.

“Tragically, 42 people remain missing and presumed dead, including 29 from Sudan, eight from Somalia, three from Cameroon and two from Nigeria,” the UN’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement.

The seven rescued survivors were four people from Sudan, two Nigerians and one person from Cameroon, the statement added.

Libya, divided in two since a civil war broke out in 2011 following the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has become a huge landing point for migrants from across Africa and the Middle East trying to reach Europe in small boats. The UN IOM said in late October that since the beginning of 2025 alone, at least 527 people had died off the coast of Libya.

Despite the lawlessness in Libya, which the State Department urges American citizens to avoid due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnappings and armed conflict,” the Trump administration was in talks earlier this year with the U.N.-backed government that governs the western part of the country, based in the capital Tripoli, about prospect of deporting immigrants from the US to the African nation.