Another 40 people perished off the Libyan coast on Tuesday (27 August) while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to claim asylum in the EU, bringing the total death count to some 900 so far this year.
Around 60, most of whom were reportedly from Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, survived the latest shipwreck, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
Some 150 died last month in a similar incident in what the UNHCR at the time called the "worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year".
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Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.