Migrants disembark at Boiler Wharf in Senglea, Malta, on July 8, 2020. A group of 52 migrants who were rescued from the high seas on Saturday were allowed to disembark in Malta, local media reported on Wednesday. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua)

The Libyan Red Crescent retrieved the bodies of 22 migrants off the coastal town of Zwara on Sunday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

"Today, 22 bodies were retrieved by the Libyan Red Crescent in Zwara," the IOM's chief of mission in Libya, Federico Soda, wrote on Twitter, sharing a photo of body bags lined up on a beach.

On Wednesday, the IOM and the UN refugee agency said dozens of migrants and refugees had perished off Libya in the deadliest shipwreck so far in 2020.

The agencies noted that survivors from Monday's sinking said that at least 45 others, including five children, had died when the engine of the vessel they were aboard exploded off Zwara.

The latest tragedy, west of Tripoli, brings to 302 the number of migrants and refugees known to have perished on the route so far in 2020, the IOM and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.

Safa Msehli, spokeswoman for the IOM in Geneva, told AFP on Sunday it was possible the 22 bodies were from that same sinking, "given the reported location of the shipwreck."

Libya has been in chaos ever since the 2011 overthrow and killing of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising, though its warring rival administrations said Friday they would cease all hostilities and organize nationwide elections soon.

Since the ousting of Gaddafi, Libya has become a key route for irregular migration from Africa into Europe, across the Mediterranean Sea.

Migrant departures from Libya's coast increased by nearly 300 percent in 2020 between January and the end of April, compared to the same period in 2019, according to the UN.

"These painful deaths are the result of the increasingly hardening policy toward people fleeing conflict and extreme poverty, and a failure to humanely manage migration flows," Soda added Sunday.

AFP