Italian coast guard searches for dozens of migrants missing after ship capsized

MILAN (AP) — The Italian coast guard was searching by sea and air Thursday for dozens of people missing when a boat capsized and partially sank earlier this week in the perilous central Mediterranean, officials said.

The partially submerged boat was still in sight, but the search operation commander said no bodies were in sight. The boat capsized about 195 kilometers (120 miles) off the Calabrian coast.

A fishing boat was the first to respond after the boat capsized on Monday and rescued 12 people, one of whom later died. The Italian coast guard has found six bodies and survivors say more than 60 people are missing. They include more than 20 children.

Survivors reported that the boat's engine caught fire, causing it to capsize off the coast of Italy about eight days after it left Turkey with about 75 people from Iran, Syria and Iraq on board, according to the the United Nations refugee agency and other United Nations organizations.

A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders said survivors suffered both psychological and physical trauma and “were left very confused.”

“They have been hospitalized… and do not yet know who in their family is alive and who died at sea,” said Cecilia Momi, the group's head of humanitarian affairs. “Entire families are destroyed. Some have lost a wife, others a child, a husband, a friend, a nephew.

Separately, on Monday, the charity rescue ship Nadir saved 51 people from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh and transported them to Lampedusa. Ten other people on the same smugglers' boat were found dead on the lower deck.

The deaths bring to more than 800 the number of people who have died or gone missing and are presumed dead while crossing the central Mediterranean so far this year, an average of five deaths per day, UN agencies said.

The International Red Cross said these tragedies are “another testimony to the Europe's failing approach to migration and asylumwhich prioritizes walls and deterrence over human reception.

___

Follow AP's coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

___

This story has been corrected to show that 12 survivors were rescued, not 11. One of them later died.