he International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that a total of 17,025 illegal migrants were rescued and returned to Libya in 2023.
A total of 1,234 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya in the past week alone, the IOM said in a report.
At the same time, 974 migrants died and 1,372 went missing on the central Mediterranean route off the Libyan coast in 2023, the IOM said.
Because of the insecurity and chaos in Libya since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, many migrants, mostly Africans, chose to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores from Libya.