bodies

Bodies of five asylum seekers wash ashore in Libya as three others die in a separate incident off the coast of Greece.

Police in Libya have recovered the bodies of five asylum seekers that washed ashore near the capital, Tripoli, as authorities in Greece announced the deaths of three others in a separate incident off the coast of Crete.

The bodies in Libya were found on Saturday by residents of the coastal town of Qasr al-Akhyar, according to a police officer.

Hassan Al-Ghawil, head of investigations ⁠at the Qasr Al-Akhyar police station, told the Reuters news agency that the bodies were all of dark-skinned people. Two of them were women.

He said people in the area had reported seeing a child’s body wash ashore before the waves returned it to sea.

“We reported to the Red Crescent to ⁠recover the bodies,” said Ghawil. “The bodies we found are still intact, and we think there are more bodies ⁠to wash ashore.”

The tragedy came weeks after the International Organization for Migration said some fifty-three migrants, including ⁠two babies, were dead or missing after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast of Zuwara town in western Tripoli.

It also came as Greek authorities were responding to a separate incident in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Athens News Agency reported on Saturday that authorities had recovered three bodies and rescued at least 20 people after a wooden boat carrying migrants and asylum seekers capsized off the coast of Crete.

Most of the survivors were Egyptians and Sudanese people, the agency reported. They also included four minors.

According to the Greek public broadcaster ERT, the wooden boat capsized when passengers were trying to climb up the ladders during a rescue effort involving a commercial ship.

The search for survivors was continuing with four patrol boats, an aircraft, and two ships from the European border agency Frontex, a spokesperson for the Greek coastguard told the AFP news agency.

According to ERT, survivors said about 50 people had been on board the wooden boat.

A second boat carrying about 40 migrants and asylum seekers was spotted in the area, leading to another rescue operation.

Thousands of people attempt the perilous crossing from Libya to Europe over the Mediterranean every year. Libya has become a transit route for people fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe since the fall in 2011 of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Last week, a ‌UN report said migrants in Libya, including young girls, are at risk of being killed, tortured, raped or put into domestic slavery, and called for ‌a ‌moratorium on the return of migrant boats to the country until human rights are ensured.

Many of the migrants and asylum seekers departing Libya seek to arrive in Crete, the gateway to the EU.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 16,770 people seeking asylum in Europe arrived in Crete in 2025.

Faced with the surge in arrivals, the conservative Greek government suspended the processing of asylum applications for three months last summer, particularly for those arriving from Libya.

The UNHCR says 107 people died or went missing in Greek waters in 2025.

Palestinian medics say several of the 54 bodies were found to be mutilated and showed extensive signs of abuse.

Israel has returned dozens of Palestinian bodies and human remains to Gaza without providing any information about their identities or how they were killed, according to Palestinian medical officials.

The remains arrived at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday in plain white bags and are now being examined by forensic teams in an effort to identify them and provide answers to grieving families.

“The bags carry the weight of lives lost. Now they’re undergoing examination, prolonging the grief of families desperate for closure,” Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported from al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday.

Palestinian medics say several bodies were mutilated.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross handed over 120 body bags containing 54 bodies as well as skull samples placed in 66 separate bags,” forensic official Omar Suleiman told Al Jazeera.

Previous exchanges of Palestinian prisoners’ bodies have revealed extensive signs of abuse, with many showing indications of torture, mutilation and execution.

In November, the rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel released a report saying at least 94 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody, citing causes including torture, medical neglect, malnutrition and physical assault.

The group said the actual toll could be significantly higher.

‘Missing for 10 months’

For many Palestinians, the search for missing relatives has shifted from streets and rubble to computer screens and improvised identification centres.

At al-Shifa, Shadi al-Fayoumi scrolled through blurred and graphic images, hoping to spot anything recognisable that might tell him what happened to his brothers.

“My brothers have been missing for 10 months. They disappeared in the Tuffah neighbourhood,” al-Fayoumi, whose brothers remain missing, told Al Jazeera.

“I went to al-Shifa Medical Complex, where we were told there were bodies we could try to identify. However, the images were unclear and lacked discernible features. How are we expected to identify them under these conditions?”

According to al-Fayoumi, his brothers had gone in search of food and water during the peak of the famine last year but never returned.

“We contacted multiple institutions, but none was willing to help or provide reliable information,” al-Fayoumi added.

Al Jazeera’s al-Khalili said al-Fayoumi’s mother has been “inconsolable”.

“His brothers’ children are silent, unwilling to voice their worst fears. Israeli forces hand over the bodies of Palestinians with little regard for human dignity,” he added.

“There is no information on how they died or how long they were held, leaving Palestinians with not only their grief but unanswered questions.”

Verified videos emerging from Iran show bodies piled up in a hospital, snipers stationed on buildings and CCTV cameras being destroyed, following the unprecedented crackdown on protests earlier this month.

BBC Verify has been tracking the spread of protests across Iran since they first erupted in late December, but the near total internet blackout imposed by the authorities has made it extremely difficult to document the scale of the state’s deadly crackdown on protesters.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed the killing of nearly 6,000 people, including 5,633 protesters, since the unrest began at the end of December. It says it is also currently investigating another 17,000 reported deaths received despite an internet shutdown after nearly three weeks.

Another group, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), has warned that the final toll could exceed 25,000.

Iranian authorities said last week that more than 3,100 people were killed, but that the majority were security personnel or bystanders attacked by “rioters”.

The latest videos to emerge from the country are understood to have been filmed on 8 and 9 January, when thousands of people took to the streets following a call for nationwide protests from Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah.

They are thought to be the deadliest nights for protesters so far and these newly verified videos show how Iran’s security forces have been violently cracking down on protesters.

Multiple clips analysed by BBC Verify and BBC Persian show bodies piled up inside a mortuary at Tehranpars hospital in east Tehran. We verified the location of the hospital by matching its interior to other publicly available images and videos of the building, and counted at least 31 bodies in just one video. Another clip shows seven body bags laid on the ground outside the hospital’s entrance.

Hundreds of people are seen protesting on a highway in west Tehran in another video before multiple rounds of gunfire can be heard and people begin to scream.

Protesters have also been seen trying to evade Iran’s heavy surveillance infrastructure by disabling CCTV cameras. Footage we verified shows one person in the capital climbing up a post and hitting a surveillance camera several times in an attempt to disable it. A huge crowd of protesters can be seen on the ground and heard cheering as the camera is damaged.

We have tracked the spread of the anti-government protests across 71 towns and cities in Iran, though the true number of areas where demonstrations have taken place is likely far higher.

In the south-eastern city of Kerman a video taken from high up in a building shows several armed men in military uniform walking down a road firing their weapons continuously, though it is not clear who they are shooting at. A small fire burns in the middle of the road while the sound of protesters chanting can be heard in the background.

Snipers have also been recorded on the roofs of buildings. In the north-eastern city of Mashhad verified video shows two men dressed in black on a rooftop of a building in daylight. One man is standing next to a large rifle that is lent against a wall and speaking on the phone. The other man crouches on the floor while smoking.

For most people there has been an almost-total internet blackout since 8 January, but some have managed to briefly access the internet using methods such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet and virtual private networks (VPNs).

More videos are likely to emerge in the coming days as the country’s economy has struggled during the blackout.

Additional reporting BBC Persian.