FORTY-EIGHT people attempting to flee Libya were intercepted by the country’s EU-supported coastguards this morning, a day after 43 others died in the first reported refugee shipwreck this year.

The refugees left Zawia on Libya’s northern coast in a wooden boat on Tuesday night.

After the boat sprung a leak later they managed to contact Alarm Phone, an activist network that runs a hotline for people in distress at sea, early this morning,