It has gotten so that "fleeing conflict in Libya has become almost as dangerous as staying behind to fight," says Barbara Lewis at Reuters. As Libyan migrants continue to crowd into rickety boats, sometimes in bad weather, for the trip to Italy's nearby Lampedusa Island, several ships have sunk or disappeared. And those migrants who make it aren't exactly welcomed with open arms by overwhelmed Europeans. Even more refugees have fled by land into neighboring Egypt or Tunisia. Here, a look at Libya's "devastating" refugee exodus, by the numbers:
746,000
Rough number of people who have fled Libya since the war began
5,000
People now stuck at Libya's land borders
58,000
People who have fled to rebel-held eastern Libya
10,371
Libyan refugees who have landed on Italy's Lampedusa Island
29,000
North Africans who have fled to Italy from Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya since Feb. 20
72
Number of refugees stranded at sea for 16 days, allegedly ignored by NATO
62
Number of those refugees who died of thirst or starvation
200
Estimated deaths from an overcrowded ship, carrying 600 refugees, that capsized Friday
800
U.N. estimate of Africans who have died at sea fleeing the Libyan conflict
10,000 to 30,000
Estimated total death toll from the Libya conflict
$300 million
Amount the U.N. has requested for its Libya humanitarian mission
$144 million
Amount it has received so far
