Heartbreaking footage has been released showing a mum screaming “I lose my baby” after a dinghy carrying migrants sank in the Mediterranean.
The mother of the six-month-old boy, Joseph, is seen writhing in agony on the floor of a boat as dozens of migrants are seen floating in the water.
She shouts: “Where is my baby? I lose my baby. Find my baby, find my baby.”
The infant, from the West African nation of Guinea, was pulled from the sea off the coast of Libya but later died on a rescue boat after going into cardiac arrest, said the Spanish refugee rescue charity Proactiva Open Arms.
Shipwrecks
It comes as at least 74 migrants drowned in the latest in a series of at least eight shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean since last month.
A boat carrying over 120 migrants, including women and children, capsized off the coast of the Libyan port of al-Khums, said the International Organisation for Migration.
Only 47 people were rescued by the Libyan coast guard and fishermen and brought to shore.
So far 31 bodies were retrieved as the search for the remaining victims continued, added the IOM.
Transit point
In the years since the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, war-torn Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants hoping to get to Europe from Africa and the Middle East.
Smugglers often pack desperate families into ill-equipped rubber boats that stall and founder along the perilous Central Mediterranean route.
At least 20,000 people have died in those waters since 2014, according to the IOM.
“The mounting loss of life in the Mediterranean is a manifestation of the inability of states to take decisive action to redeploy much needed, dedicated Search and Rescue capacity in the deadliest sea-crossing in the world,” said Federico Soda, IOM Libya chief of mission.
Related: Reaction as Dominic Cummings ‘set to leave Govt by Christmas’