Bodies of 120 refugees found on Libya shores in ten days

The bodies of 120 refugees washed up on Libyan shores as the number of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean rises by 58%

120 bodies have washed on Libyan shores in the last ten days
120 bodies have washed on Libyan shores in the last ten days

The bodies of 120 refugees have washed up on the shores of Libya in the past 10 days, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

The bodies are believed to belong to people who found themselves shipwrecked in the Mediterranean which authorities were not aware of.

Speaking at a press briefing, IOM spokesperson Joel Millman said that a total of 4,027 refugees have died worldwide so far this year, adding that this was a 35% increase on the global toll during the first seven months of 2015.

Three-quarters of these refugee, 3,120 of them, Millman said, died in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe. According to IOM statistics, the deaths occurred between 1 January and 31 July of 2016, and is an increase of 58% when compared with 1,970 in the same period a year of 2015.

Taking 2015 in total, at least 3,771 refugees lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean.

Human rights groups have continuously been calling for safer passages, but their calls for most part fall on deaf ears.

"We are well on track to exceeding the total number of known deaths that occurred in 2015," Niels Frenzen, director of the Immigration Clinic at USC Gould School of Law said.