https://arab.news/2hb3z
- Migrant refugees were from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Iraq
JEDDAH: At least 11 migrants died and more than 60 were still missing on Monday after two shipwrecks in the Mediterranean off the coast of southern Italy.
The German aid group RESQSHIP, which operates the Nadir rescue ship, picked up 51 people from a sinking wooden boat, including two who were unconscious, and found 10 bodies trapped in the lower deck of the vessel.
“Our thoughts are with their families. We are angry and sad,” the group said.
The survivors were handed over to the Italian coast guard and taken ashore on Monday morning, while the Nadir made its way to the island of Lampedusa towing the wooden boat with the bodies of the deceased.
UN agencies said the migrants came from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The second shipwreck took place about 200 km east of the Italian region of Calabria, when a boat that had set off from Turkiye eight days earlier carrying migrants from Iran, Syria and Iraq caught fire and overturned. One woman died, 11 people were rescued and taken ashore to the Calabrian town of Roccella Ionica by the Italian coast guard, and 64 migrants were missing at sea.
UN agencies urged EU governments to step up Mediterranean search and rescue efforts and expand legal and safe migration channels, so that migrants “are not forced to risk their lives at sea.”
More than 23,500 migrants, including 749 so far this year, have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean since 2014.