Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A rubber boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea last week after taking on water, leaving 53 people migrating from North Africa presumed dead, a United Nations-affiliated migration organization said Monday.
The boat capsized off the coast of Libya, north of the city Zuwara, on Friday while traveling along a migration route through the Central Mediterranean that has potentially claimed the lives of nearly 500 people since Jan. 1.
In coordination with Libyan authorities, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it provided emergency medical care to two Nigerian women who were the only survivors of the when the vessel flipped -- one who reported losing her husband and the other losing her two babies.
"In January alone, at least 375 migrants were reported or missing following multiple 'invisible' shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean amid extreme weather, with hundreds more deaths believed to be unrecorded," IOM said in a press release.
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