"I spoke to my son for the last time on the evening of June 7. He told me they were taking off" two days later, said the father of a 14-year-old who had disappeared in the Mediterranean.
"Young men regularly leave our village without telling their families," the father told AFP, requesting anonymity to protect his privacy. Authorities say 43 Egyptians survived. A local NGO, Refugees Platform in Egypt , said it has received dozens of calls from families desperate for news of their relatives.
"We don't have specific numbers of Egyptians that were on the boat, and authorities have not disclosed the number of Egyptians that disappeared," Khalil told AFP.AFP | Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Laurence SAUBADU, Sylvie HUSSON It says most make their way via Libya, pushed by Egypt's worst economic crisis in modern history and what Egyptian rights groups describe as"catastrophic" human rights violations.
But"the militarisation of the border is not a solution" and exposes migrants to abuses in areas where rights watchdogs have restricted access, according to Khalil.