The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says the Libyan Red Crescent has retrieved the bodies of 22 refugees and migrants off the coastal town of Zwara on Sunday, likely to be from a shipwreck that took place last week.

On Wednesday, the IOM and the UN refugee agency said at least 45 refugees and migrants, including five children, died in the worst shipwreck reported so far this year off Libya’s coast.

Safa Msehli, spokesperson for the IOM in Geneva, told newsmen on Sunday it was possible the 22 bodies were from that same sinking, “given the reported location of the shipwreck”.

“The bodies retrieved today were all African males. We still don’t have information on the nationalities,” she added.

On Sunday, AlarmPhone, an activist network alerting authorities of boats in distress in the Mediterranean, reported that three more shipwrecks took place in the central Mediterranean between August 17 and August 20.

At least 497 refugees and migrants are known to have perished on the route so far this year, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants project. Authorities stress that the actual figure was likely much higher.

There are more than 636,000 refugees and migrants currently in Libya, according to IOM. Fighting in the country endangers them as they wait to cross the sea in hope of reaching Europe, across one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.