Death in the Mediterranean continues. In a boat accident off the Libyan coast dozens of people have been killed.

The Libyan Red Crescent retrieved the bodies of 22 migrants off the coastal town of Zwara on Sunday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

“Today, 22 bodies were retrieved by the Libyan Red Crescent in Zwara,” the IOM’s chief of mission in Libya, Federico Soda, wrote on Twitter, sharing a photo of body bags lined up on a beach.

“These painful deaths are the result of the increasingly hardening policy towards people fleeing conflict and extreme poverty, and a failure to humanely manage migration flows,” Soda said.

On Wednesday, the IOM and the UN refugee agency said dozens of migrants and refugees had perished off Libya in the deadliest shipwreck so far this year.

The agencies said that survivors from the sinking, 37 of whom were rescued by fishermen, said at least 45 others, including five children, had died when the engine of the vessel they were aboard exploded off Zwara.

The latest tragedy, west of Tripoli, brings to 302 the number of migrants and refugees known to have perished on the route so far this year, the IOM and the UNHCR said, stressing that the actual figure was likely much higher.

Safa Msehli, spokeswoman for the IOM in Geneva, told AFP on Sunday it was possible the 22 bodies were from that same sinking, “given the reported location of the shipwreck.”

“The bodies retrieved today were all African males. We still don’t have information on the nationalities,” she added.

Due to wars, poverty and hunger, many people seek protection in European countries. But Europe is becoming more and more isolated and people are forced to travel on more and more dangerous routes to reach Europe and possibly claim their right to asylum. One of the most dangerous routes is the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Malta or Italy. At the moment only one rescue ship, the Sea-Watch-4, is cruising in the Mediterranean, as all other civilian rescue ships have been detained by the EU states under various flimsy pretexts. Merchant ships with refugees are often not left in ports for weeks and thus put under pressure not to comply with their rescue obligation.