At least 20 migrants died after their boat overturned in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, with many more still missing, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
The disaster was the latest in the dangerous central Mediterranean, where most migrants seeking to reach Europe cross in leaky or overcrowded boats, especially in the warm weather of the summer months.
“Deep anguish for the umpteenth shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa, where UNHCR is now assisting the survivors. It looks to be 20 bodies found and as many missing,” wrote the agency’s spokesman, Filippo Ungaro, on social media.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi confirmed the disaster, saying the shipwreck happened 14 nautical miles from Lampedusa.
The boat had been carrying 97 people when it turned over, Radio Radicale reported.
Italian news agency ANSA said the bodies of a newborn, three children, two men and two women were among the first to be transported to a Lampedusa mortuary.
ANSA reported, citing survivors, that the disaster involved two boats that left Tripoli Tuesday evening. After one began to capsize, some migrants managed to move to the other, which became overloaded and began taking on water, ANSA said.
The deputy director of the Lampedusa migrant hotspot, Cristina Palma, told ANSA that 60 survivors had been transported to the centre.
News agencies said that a plane from Italy’s financial police first spotted the migrants in the water.
The UNHCR said Wednesday there have been 675 migrant deaths on the central Mediterranean route so far this year.
As of Wednesday, 38,263 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores this year, according to the interior ministry.
Piantedosi wrote on social media that the episode underscored “the urgency of preventing, from the countries of departure, the dangerous sea journeys and of relentlessly combating the ruthless trafficking business that fuels this phenomenon.
The hard-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cut deals with North African countries from which migrants embark, providing funding and training in exchange for help in stemming departures.
