25 people found dead in Mediterranean migrant boat horror

Tripoli. The French aid group Doctors without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday it had found the bodies of 29 migrants who perished in a pool of fuel and seawater on a crowded dinghy off Libya.

The find adds to the grim evidence of the hazards of crossing the Mediterranean -- a journey that the UN said Wednesday has claimed more than 3,800 lives so far this year, a record.

MSF said its chartered rescue ship, the Bourbon Argos, picked up 107 people aboard the inflatable boat 26 nautical miles off Libya on Tuesday.

Its crew initially counted 11 corpses on the dinghy’s floor, which was flooded with a murky mixture of fuel and seawater.

The Bourbon Argos was then called away to another rescue operation nearby, saving 139 people aboard another vessel.

The crew returned to the dinghy and found on closer examination that 29 people had died, probably from suffocation, skin burns or drowning.

The bodies were retrieved from the toxic mixture over a period of hours, with the help of a team from the German NGO Sea-Watch.

“The mixture of water and fuel was so foul that we could not stay on the boat for long periods. It was horrible,” MSF project leader Michele Telaro said in a statement.

Twenty-three survivors suffered burns from exposure to fuel, 11 of whom were seriously hurt. Seven survivors were taken to hospital, two of them by helicopter.

The MSF team also provided psychological help to survivors, including a man who was left clutching his eight-month-old baby after his wife died.