Rescue ships in the Mediterranean were searching for survivors late Wednesday off the coast of Libya where a boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized, according to authorities and aid agencies.
Only about half of the estimated 600 migrants on board the vessel are believed to have been rescued, according to Doctors Without Borders, the international aid group, which dispatched rescue ships to the site.
“It was a horrific sight, people desperately clinging to life belts, boats, and anything they could, fighting for their lives, amidst people drowning, and those who had already died,” Juan Matias, the group’s project coordinator on Dignity I, one of its search and rescue ships, said in a statement.