Images of dead children and women washed up on a beach in Libya have been shared by a Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms. The organization received some of the photos from inside Libya and said they are of people who had tried to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. They show the partially clothed bodies of small children and a woman, bloated and half buried in the sand. At least 743 migrants are known to have died in the Mediterranean this year.
“We are in shock,” Open Arms head of communications Laura Lanuza told the BBC. “When people try to flee from Libya they shouldn’t be taken back or left adrift in the Mediterranean. There should be a search and rescue operation… to protect lives at sea.”
“The Mediterranean is the biggest graveyard in the world,” she said. “It shouldn’t be like this.”