At least 26 migrants died on Wednesday when two boats sank off the coast of Italy’s Lampedusa island, with about 10 other people still missing, the coast guard and UN officials said.
About 60 people were rescued after the sinkings in the central Mediterranean, a stretch between North Africa and Italy described by the UN as the world’s most dangerous sea crossing for migrants.
The two boats had left Tripoli earlier in the day, the Italian Coast Guard said.
Photo: Reuters
One of the boats started taking on water, causing people to climb onto the other boat, which itself then capsized, it said.
“Currently 60 people have been rescued and disembarked in Lampedusa, and [there are] at least 26 victims. The toll is still provisional and being updated,” the coast guard said in a statement.
The Italian Red Cross said that the survivors included 56 men and four women, updating a previous toll of 22 dead.
International Organization for Migration spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said that about 95 people had been on the two boats.
Given how many had been saved, “approximately 35 victims are feared dead or missing,” he wrote on social media.
Among the first to be transported to the Lampedusa mortuary were the bodies of a newborn, three children, two men and two women, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.
Lampedusa, 145km off Tunisia, is often the first port of call for people trying to reach Europe in leaky or overcrowded boats.
In the past few years, Italian authorities have sought to intercept the boats at sea before they arrive.
It was a helicopter from Italy’s financial police that spotted a capsized boat and several bodies in the water on Wednesday, about 14 nautical miles (26km) off Lampedusa, the coast guard said.
Five vessels were searching for survivors, including one from the EU’s Frontex border agency, alongside a helicopter and two aircraft, it said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered her “deepest condolences” to the victims and vowed to step up efforts to tackle migrant traffickers.
“When a tragedy like today’s occurs, with the deaths of dozens of people in the waters of the Mediterranean, a strong sense of dismay and compassion arises in all of us,” she said in a statement.
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