Migrants: at least 11 dead and dozens missing in two shipwrecks off the Italian coast

Eleven people are dead and dozens are missing after two migrant boats sank in the Mediterranean off the Italian coast. One of the boats came from Turkey and the other from North Africa, an NGO, the Italian coast guard and the media reported on June 17.

The German NGO ResQship reported on X that its humanitarian ship “Nadir” had rescued 51 people stranded “on a waterlogged wooden boat” between the Libyan coast and the Italian island of Lampedusa, where the bodies of ten others migrants were found.

“Our team was able to evacuate 51 people, including two unconscious. It took an ax to free them,” the NGO said. “The unconscious individuals are currently receiving medical attention and awaiting urgent evacuation.”

It is estimated that there are 50 missing

The Italian coast guard also announced that it had recovered 12 people from a sailboat adrift off Calabria, near the dividing line between Italian and Greek waters. A passenger died during rescue operations. According to the Ansa news agency, around fifty passengers were missing.

The Italian coast guard clarified that the sailboat had probably left Turkey. The alert was given by French boaters who had picked up the shipwrecked people on their boat located around 120 nautical miles from the coast. The migrants were then taken aboard a hijacked commercial ship and then transferred to a coast guard boat which brought them to the port of Roccella Jonica.

3,155 deaths in 2023

The search continued on Monday with the maritime and air resources of the coast guard and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, according to a press release from the coast guard which does not specify the number of presumed people. disappeared.

Last year, 3,155 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean, compared to 2,411 officially recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) the previous year.

The Central Mediterranean Route

The central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest migration routes in the world, was responsible for 80% of deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean last year. It is widely used by migrants seeking to enter the European Union to escape conflict or poverty, from Tunisia and Libya.

Since coming to power at the end of 2022, Italy's ultra-conservative government led by Giorgia Meloni has pledged to reduce the number of migrant arrivals from North Africa to the peninsula's coasts. Rome has argued that sea rescue NGOs encourage migrants to attempt the crossing. NGOs reject this argument, stressing that they represent less than 10% of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.