Search for dozens feared missing after deadly migrant shipwrecks off Italy

AFP | Rome, Italy

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Italian  coast guard searched off southern Italy yesterday for survivors or the bodies of dozens of migrants feared missing, after two shipwrecks left 11 people dead.

With up to 60 migrants potentially lost at sea, the coastguard said it has been looking for “possible missing persons” since late Sunday, “following the shipwreck of a sailing boat with migrants on board, presumably departing from Turkey”.

Rescue efforts began after “a ‘mayday’ from a French pleasure boat” some 120 nautical miles off the Italian coast, it said.

The French vessel alerted authorities to “the presence of the half-sunken boat”, before taking 12 surviving migrants on board.

They were then transferred to an Italian coastguard boat, which took them to the town of Roccella Ionica in southern Italy. One of the surviving 12 died after disembarking, the coastguard said.

Around 50 migrants were missing following the shipwreck, according to ANSA news agency, while Radio Radicale put the number at 64, adding that those lost at sea were from Afghanistan and Iran.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was providing “psychological assistance to all survivors”. The team had “supported first aid activities for 12 people, including a woman who died shortly after disembarkation due to her severe medical condition”, it said.

Flooded lower deck

Further south, rescuers coming to the aid of migrants on a wooden boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa found 10 bodies below deck, the German aid group ResQship posted on X Monday.

The crew of ResQship’s vessel, the Nadir, managed to pull 51 people to safety. “The rescue came too late for 10 people,” the German charity said.

“A total of 61 people were on the wooden boat, which was full of water. Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious -- they had to be cut free with an axe,” it said.

“The 10 dead are in the flooded lower deck of the boat,” it added. The survivors hailed from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and Syria, according to ANSA, which said they had paid around $3,500 to travel in the eight-metre (26- foot) long boat.