Eleven Sudanese migrants dead after crash in Libyan desert

Eleven Sudanese migrants and a Libyan driver are dead after their vehicle colided with a truck in the Libyan desert early on Friday morning.

The victims include three women and two children, local emergency services said.

The crash 90 kilometers north of the Libyan town of Kufra is the latest tragedy involving Sudanese fleeing the civil war in their home country.

Earlier this month, seven Sudanese were found dead after their vehicle broke down in the desert, leaving 34 migrants on board stranded for several days.

Transit point

Libya was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

It has since has become a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East to seek better lives in Europe. The country shares borders with six nations and has a long coastline along the Mediterranean.

Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across Libya’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.

Thousands of Sudanese have fled to Libya in the last two years after civil war broke out in their country, killing thousands, displacing more than 14 million, and pushing parts of the country into famine.