More than 700 refugees are feared dead in three Mediterranean Sea shipwrecks south of Italy in the past few days as they tried to reach Europe in smuggling boats, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said yesterday.
Commission spokeswoman Carlotta Sami told reporters that an estimated 100 people are missing from a smugglers’ boat that capsized on Wednesday.
The Italian Navy took photographs of that capsizing even as it rushed to rescue all those thrown into the sea from the boat.
Photo: AFP / GUARDIA COSTIERA
Sami said that about 550 other migrants and refugees are missing from a smuggling boat that capsized on Thursday morning after leaving the western Libyan port of Sabratha a day earlier.
She said people who saw the boat sink told her agency that the boat, which was carrying about 670 people, did not have an engine and was being towed by another packed smuggling boat before it capsized.
About 25 people from the capsized boat reached the first boat and survived, 79 others were rescued by international patrol boats and 15 bodies were recovered.
Italian police have corroborated the account of the Thursday sinking in their interviews with survivors, but came up with different numbers. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the figures.
According to survivors, the second boat was carrying about 500 migrants when it starting taking on water after about eight hours of navigation. Efforts to empty the water were insufficient and the boat was completely under water after 90 minutes, police said.
At that point, the commander of the first smuggler’s boat ordered the tow rope to be cut to the sinking boat.
The people on the top deck jumped into the sea, while those below deck, estimated at 300, sank with the ship, police said.
Of those who jumped into the sea, 90 were rescued.
Survivors identified the commander of the boat with the working engine as a 28-year-old Sudanese man, who has been arrested, police said.
On Friday, in a third shipwreck, Sami said 135 people were rescued, 45 bodies were recovered and an unknown number of people were missing.
Survivors were being taken to the Italian ports of Taranto and Pozzallo.
Sami said the agency is trying to gather information with sensitivity, considering that most of the new arrivals are either shipwreck survivors themselves or traumatized by what they saw.
Elsewhere, 19 people were rescued yesterday from the English Channel after an inflatable boat they were in started taking on water, the British Maritime and Coastguard Agency said.
The Kent Online Web site described the 19 as “migrants.”
The British coast guard said in a statement that a call was made close to midnight on Saturday and the inflatable boat was found in the early hours of the morning by a search and rescue helicopter, lifeboats and rescue teams off the coast of the county of Kent.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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