Migrant crisis: At least 200 feared drowned as people smuggling across Mediterranean continues

Libyan authorities are still searching for survivors, a day after two migrant boats carrying 500 people capsized off the country's coast.

An estimated 200 people are missing and feared dead; the bodies of 82 people washed ashore on Friday local time.
In one boat, many appeared to have been trapped in the hold when it sank.
The boats left separately on Thursday from the western Libyan town of Zuwara, a major launchpad for smugglers shipping migrants to Italy.
The migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco and Bangladesh, an security official said.
The Libyan coast guard has limited rescue capabilities, relying on small inflatables, tug boats and fishing vessels provided by locals.
The number rescued is unclear, but a Red Crescent official said 198 were taken to an asylum seeker holding facility in Libya.
A spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, Melissa Fleming, said survivors had given harrowing accounts.
"They told us that smugglers were charging people money just to allow them to come out of the hold to breathe," she said.
"One survivor told colleagues 'we didn't want to go down there but they beat us with sticks. Other passengers were scared the boat would capsize so they pushed us back down and beat us too'."
One of the survivors, an Iraqi orthopaedic surgeon, said he had paid nearly $4,000 to come up onto the top deck with his wife and two-year-old son.
The UNHCR said the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe had passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014.
The agency said more than 2,500 people had died making the sea crossing this year, compared with 3,500 last year.

Action urged on people smuggling

Libya is a major transit route for migrants hoping to make it to Europe.
Smuggling networks exploit the country's lawlessness and chaos to bring Syrians into Libya via Egypt while Africans arrive through Niger, Sudan and Chad.
The United Nations secretary-general has appealed to governments to step up their response to Europe's migrant crisis.
Ban Ki-moon praised leaders and communities who were taking action to cope with the flow of migrants, but said much more was required.
The United States has added its voice to those urging Europe's leaders to prevent more migrant deaths.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Europe should get tougher on traffickers who are exploiting migrants.
He said the migrant crisis in Europe showed unrest in the Middle East has a worldwide impact.
"This is a testament to the way the violence and instability in North Africa and the Middle East isn't just destabilising the immediate region but is starting to have a destabilising impact on other regions of the world too including in Europe," Mr Earnest said.