Two boats carrying migrants have run into distress in the Mediterranean. According to aid workers and the Italian coast guard, at least eleven people have died. Many people are missing.
At least eleven migrants have died in two boat accidents in the Mediterranean. According to the German aid organization Resqship and the Italian coast guard, the boats got into distress off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa and the southern Italian region of Calabria.
Aid organization rescues people from wooden boat
According to reports, the crew of the rescue ship “Nadir” rescued 51 people from a wooden boat between Libya and Lampedusa. According to reports, there were ten bodies in the lower deck of the boat, which had already filled with water. The people in the lower deck had suffocated from petrol fumes or had fainted from them and then drowned in the ship’s hull, said “Nadir” skipper Ingo Werth. Two unconscious people were rescued alive from the lower deck and, according to the aid organization, are in urgent need of medical treatment on land.
According to Resqship, the survivors were handed over to the Italian coast guard. The crew of the “Nadir” took care of transporting the ten dead. The refugees and migrants had reportedly started from Libya. Half of them came from Bangladesh, it was said. People from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt were also on board the wooden boat. Resqship did not reveal when and where the rescue operation took place. According to the tracking service marinetraffic.com, the “Nadir” was off the eastern Tunisian port of Sfax on Monday morning.
Many missing off the Italian coast
In the second incident, the Italian coast guard said it rescued twelve people from a sailing boat about 220 kilometers east of the southern region of Calabria. One passenger died during the rescue operation. As the Italian news agency Ansa reported, rescue workers are searching for 50 missing people who, according to survivors, fell overboard.
According to the coast guard, the sailing boat probably came from Turkey. French sailors had discovered the shipwrecked people in international waters and alerted the coast guard. The rescued people were taken to a merchant ship and then to a coast guard ship, which took them to the Calabrian port of Roccella Ionica. The coast guard and the EU border protection agency Frontex are continuing the search.
Dangerous escape route
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the central Mediterranean is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. According to the IOM, at least 3,155 people died while fleeing across the Mediterranean in 2023.