TRIPOLI, Libya — The bodies of at least five migrants, including two women, were found washed ashore in Qasr al-Akhyar, a coastal town about 45 miles (73 kilometers) east of the capital, after residents alerted police Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026.
Investigators believe the deaths were tied to a shipwreck in rough seas, the latest Libyan migrant tragedy on the central Mediterranean route, according to a Reuters report.
Hassan Al-Ghawil, head of investigations at the Qasr al-Akhyar police station, said residents found the bodies on Emhamid Al-Sharif shore in the western part of the town and reported them to authorities.
“We reported to the Red Crescent to recover the bodies,” Al-Ghawil said. “The bodies we found are still intact and we think there are more bodies to wash ashore.”
Al-Ghawil said witnesses told police a child’s body also washed up but was swept back out to sea by high waves. He said the coast guard was asked to search for the child, and that the victims appeared to be dark-skinned.
Libyan migrant tragedy highlights mounting risks near Tripoli
The Libyan migrant tragedy in Qasr al-Akhyar comes as departures from Libya and nearby North African shores remain among the deadliest attempts to reach Europe. Libya, fractured by conflict and rival power centers since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi, has become a key transit point for people fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
Earlier this month, the International Organization for Migration said 53 migrants, including two babies, were dead or missing after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast near Zuwara, west of the capital. Only two Nigerian women survived, and one reported losing her husband while the other said she lost her two babies, according to a separate Reuters report.
That report said more than 1,300 migrants went missing on the central Mediterranean route in 2025. In January alone, at least 375 people were reported dead or missing after multiple “invisible” shipwrecks in severe weather, the agency said, putting the 2026 toll at at least 484 as of early February — a grim drumbeat behind each new Libyan migrant tragedy.
Human rights fears grow as returns continue
Human rights monitors say the risks do not end when boats are intercepted or survivors reach land. A report published Feb. 17 by the U.N. Human Rights Office and the U.N. Support Mission in Libya described migrants and asylum-seekers being abducted, arbitrarily detained and subjected to torture, sexual violence and forced labor in what it called a “violent business model” that has become “business as usual,” as outlined in the U.N. rights office’s summary.
The report is based on interviews with nearly 100 migrants from 16 countries and covers abuses documented in 2024 and 2025. In one account quoted in the report, an Eritrean woman detained in eastern Libya said, “I wish I died. It was a journey of hell.”
The Libyan migrant tragedy also unfolds against a grim statistical backdrop. UNICEF estimated in 2025 that about 3,500 children have died or disappeared on the central Mediterranean route over the past decade and said many shipwrecks leave no survivors or are never recorded, according to its analysis of the route’s toll on children.
Continuity: a Libyan migrant tragedy that repeats along the shoreline
Scenes like those in this Libyan migrant tragedy have surfaced repeatedly along Libya’s coast in recent years:
In 2019, Reuters reported six migrant bodies washed ashore near al-Khoms, east of the capital, while about 100 survivors were brought back to shore.
In 2021, the Associated Press reported that 27 bodies washed ashore in Khoms, including a baby and two women, after shipwrecks off the coast.
In 2023, Reuters reported at least eight people died after a boat packed with migrants capsized, and bodies washed ashore near Castelverde, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of the capital.
For residents of Qasr al-Akhyar, the Libyan migrant tragedy has again turned a stretch of beach into a recovery site. Officials did not immediately provide information about the victims’ nationalities or how many people might still be missing, but Al-Ghawil said authorities expected more bodies could appear as the sea state changes in this latest Libyan migrant tragedy.
