64 people missing and many rescued from 2 shipwrecks off the coast of Italy. At least 11 died

ROME (AP) — Sixty-four people were missing in the Mediterranean Sea and several were rescued after their ship sank off Italy's southern coast Monday, U.N. agencies said in a statement.

In another wreck, rescuers evacuated dozens of suspected migrants but found 10 bodies trapped under the deck of a wooden boat off the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the German humanitarian organization Resqship wrote on Monday the social media platform

The boat that sank about 200 kilometers off the coast of Calabria had set off from Turkey eight days earlier, but caught fire and overturned, UN agencies said, citing survivors.

The search and rescue operation began following a distress call from a French boat, the Italian coast guard said in a statement. The boat was sailing in a border area where Greece and Italy are carrying out search and rescue operations. Survivors and those still missing at sea were from Iran, Syria and Iraq, UN agencies said.

The Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center immediately diverted two merchant ships sailing nearby to the rescue scene. Resources from the European border and coast guard agency Frontex also helped.

The survivors were transported to the Calabrian port of Roccella Jonica, where they were disembarked and placed in the care of medical personnel. One of the 11 rescued migrants died shortly after, the coast guard said.

In the second sinking, the crew aboard Reqship's boat Nadir found 61 people on the water-filled wooden boat.

“Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious,” the statement added. “The 10 dead were in the flooded lower deck of the boat.”

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