On Wednesday,over 42 persons drowned when a boat carrying migrants capsized in the Mediterranean off Egypt’s north coast, thereby prompting a search operation in which another 150 were rescued, officials said.
The vessel overturned off the port city of Rosetta, police and health officials said.
The total number of people on board was not immediately clear.
A municipal official in the Mediterranean city told AFP the dead included a child, 10 women and 31 young men.
They were Egyptians, Eritreans, Sudanese and Syrians, said the official, Ali Abdel Sattar.
The boat had departed around 3:00 am and rolled over several hours later some 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from the coast, he said.
The tragedy comes months after the EU’s border agency Frontex warned growing numbers of migrants bound for Europe were turning to Egypt as a departure point for the perilous sea journey.
Smugglers often overload the boats, some of them scarcely seaworthy, with passengers who have paid for the journey. Forty-two people died in Wednesday’s boat accident, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told AFP.
Emergency workers had rescued 150 passengers, according to officials in the police force and health ministry.
Hospitals were being prepared to receive more casualties, the ministry said.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Sharif Ismail ordered police to arrest the smugglers responsible, a cabinet statement said.
The accident came a day after the military said it stopped a boat carrying 68 migrants before it set off from Egypt’s northwestern coast, not far from Rosetta.
More than 10,000 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean for Europe since 2014, according to the United Nations.
Asylum-seekers have been seeking other ways to reach Europe since March, when Balkan countries closed the popular overland route and the EU agreed a deal with Turkey to halt departures.
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