A minimum of 11 folks useless after two shipwrecks within the Mediterranean Sea | Migration Information

UN companies say 64 persons are lacking after shipwrecks off the coast of southern Italy.

A minimum of 11 folks have died and 64 others are lacking after two shipwrecks off southern Italy, in keeping with a German charity, the Italian coast guard and United Nations companies.

The German support group RESQSHIP, which operates the Nadir rescue ship, mentioned it picked up 51 folks from a sinking picket boat, together with two who have been unconscious, and located 10 our bodies trapped within the decrease deck of the vessel.

“Our ideas are with their households. We’re offended and unhappy,” the group posted on X on Monday.

RESQSHIP mentioned the survivors have been handed over to the Italian coast guard and brought ashore on Monday morning, whereas the Nadir was making its technique to the island of Lampedusa, towing the picket boat with the our bodies of the deceased.

🔴(2/2) The unconscious are at present receiving medical consideration and await a critically wanted emergency evacuation. The ten useless are within the flooded decrease deck of the boat.

Our ideas are with their households. We’re offended and unhappy. #FortressEurope kills. pic.twitter.com/o9y1gihfhs

— RESQSHIP (@resqship_int) June 17, 2024

The UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Worldwide Group for Migration (IOM) and the UN Youngsters’s Fund (UNICEF) mentioned in a joint assertion that the refugees and migrants intercepted by the German charity got here from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The second shipwreck occurred about 200km (125 miles) east of the Italian area of Calabria, as a ship that had set off from Turkey eight days earlier caught hearth and overturned, the UN companies mentioned.

They mentioned 64 folks have been lacking at sea, whereas 11 have been rescued and brought ashore to the Calabrian city of Roccella Ionica by the Italian coast guard, together with the physique of a girl.

The coast guard earlier mentioned it was on the lookout for an unspecified variety of lacking folks, with the assistance of the European Union border company Frontex.

The vessel, a crusing boat discovered partially sunk, was first noticed by a French boat in worldwide waters the place Italian and Greek search-and-rescue zones overlap, the coast guard mentioned.

The UN companies mentioned the refugees and migrants concerned within the second shipwreck got here from Iran, Syria and Iraq.

In accordance with a March report by IOM’s Lacking Migrants Challenge, greater than 27,000 folks have died within the Mediterranean Sea over the past decade, while attempting to succeed in southern Europe from northern Africa.

Whereas many of the deaths within the central Mediterranean have been documented off the coast of Libya, the IOM has additionally recorded an “enhance in departures and, correspondingly, shipwrecks” off the coast of Tunisia. A minimum of 729 folks died off the Tunisian coast in 2023, in comparison with 462 the earlier yr.

When the IOM’s challenge started in 2014, European sentiment was extra sympathetic to the plight of refugees, and the Italian authorities had launched “Mare Nostrum,” a significant search-and-rescue mission that saved 1000’s of lives.

However with anti-immigration political events steadily gaining affect throughout Europe, governments have tried to curb migration flows to their international locations by pledging funds to international locations throughout the Mediterranean corresponding to Tunisia and Egypt.

The UN and different NGOs have once more referred to as on EU governments to step up Mediterranean search-and-rescue efforts and develop authorized and secure migration channels, in order that migrants “usually are not pressured to danger their lives at sea”.