UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said that an estimated 100 people are missing from a boat which capsized on Wednesday.
Advertisement
That would bring the combined death toll to around 700, making it the deadliest week since April previous year, when a boat with an estimated 700 to 800 people locked in the hold sank after colliding with a merchant vessel sent to rescue it.
As 13,000 economic migrants were picked up on the Libyan coast and ferried direct to Italian shores by European ships patrolling the Mediterranean Sea in just one week, a veteran reporter of migration to the continent has warned that this “enormous one-way flow of migrants to the West is changing Europe irretrievably and forever”.. Those interviews were the primary basis for the estimate of 700 deaths, though some migration specialists cautioned that the number might turn out to be higher. “There were many women and children”, he said.
According to Italian police, 300 people in the hold went down with the second boat when it sank, while around 200 on the upper deck jumped into the sea.
How many people have died this year during the crossing? For two hours we fought against the water but it was useless.
Serbian police say they have prevented the illegal transfer of 44 migrants to Hungary and arrested three Afghans accused of planning to smuggle them across the border.
At least 1,475 migrants have died this year, according to the International Organisation for Migrants. With weather conditions set to improve, more people will risk the risky journey in flimsy boats. The Italian navy took horrific pictures of that capsizing even as it rushed to rescue all those thrown into the sea from the boat.
On Friday, the Italian Navy ship Vega collected 45 bodies and rescued 135 from a “half-submerged” rubber boat.
The rhib (rigid-hulled inflatable boat), with 19 people on board, was found at 2am and the matter was handed over to Border Force. Some 500 migrants were on the fishing boat; 600 more on the vessel under tow were being dragged behind, Fossi said.
Numerous recent arrivals, largely Eritreans and Somalians, said they had balked at the idea of boarding the rickety vessels and dinghies once they saw them, but were forced on in Libya at gunpoint.
However, a British activist who was involved with proceedings said, “I visited a lot of the new camps”.
Tekle fled mandatory, open-ended conscription in Eritrea six years ago, spending time in Egypt, Israel, Uganda and Sudan before heading to Libya to take the risky, and ultimately deadly, sea journey to Italy.
“I want to tell the world this way is risky for us”.
Many of Ventimiglia’s residents provided free meals, blankets and other help to the migrants while they camped in the seaside town.
Advertisement
“In the places that I visited, there was no privacy, no fire safety, no light and no ventilation and people have no information on their situation or their prospects”, said Strik, in a press statement released on Sunday.
