Rescue teams report that at least 11 people have lost their lives and over 60 are missing following two devastating shipwrecks off the southern coast of Italy.
German charity RESQSHIP rescued 51 individuals from a sinking wooden vessel, discovering 10 bodies trapped in the lower deck near the island of Lampedusa on Monday.
In a separate incident the same day, over 60 people were reported missing, with 26 feared to be children, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
UN agencies confirmed that the boats were transporting migrants who had departed from Libya and Turkey.
Survivors from the Lampedusa shipwreck were transferred to the Italian coastguard and brought ashore on Monday morning.
The deceased were being towed to the island, as reported by RESQSHIP.
The boat, originating from Libya, carried migrants from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, according to a joint statement from the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN children’s agency UNICEF.
The second shipwreck occurred approximately 125 miles off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy.
The Italian coastguard stated that one of the 12 survivors died after disembarking.
Shakilla Mohammadi from MSF recounted hearing from survivors that 66 people were missing, including at least 26 children, some only a few months old.
“Entire families from Afghanistan are presumed dead.
They left from Turkey eight days ago and had taken in water for three or four days.
They told us they had no life vests and some vessels did not stop to help them,” she said in a statement.
The Mediterranean remains the deadliest known migration route globally, with over 23,500 migrants reported dead or missing in its waters since 2014, according to UN data.
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