CAIRO: Three migrants drowned on Saturday and 31 were rescued after a boat carrying illegal immigrants trying to reach Europe capsized off Egypt’s port of Baheira, security officials and state media said.

Coastguards arrested those rescued, and it was not immediately clear what caused the trawler to sink, security officials said.

State-run Al-Ahram newspaper said 13 Syrians, 15 Sudanese, two Eritreans and one Egyptian were saved.

The incident nearly two weeks after 800 migrants died in a shipwreck off Libya in one of the biggest maritime disasters of recent years.

Officials and rights activists say last month’s tragedy off Libya has not deterred hundreds of migrants, including Syrian refugees, from risking a perilous sea voyage to Europe.

They expect more migrants to cross the Mediterranean from Egypt as summer arrives, despite nearly 5,000 people having drowned since January.

The UNHCR says around 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean and 3,500 died in 2014, and so far in 2015 more than 35,000 asylum seekers and migrants have reached southern Europe.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2015

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