The Italian Coast Guard and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said about 400 people had been rescued and 25 bodies had been recovered so far, although it was still not clear exactly how many people were on board.
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While noting that most drownings occurred before the European Border Agency’s Triton Operation began covering worldwide waters, the IOM said the risks of new shipwrecks remained.
“Given this reality presented to us on our screens, we must ask how so much of our discourse has focused on questions of security and border control, on alleged “pull factors”, to the neglect of the full and awful reality of the conditions from which the people are leaving, and the role of the wider world, including ourselves, in those zones of conflict”, he said.
When water started seeping in, “the migrants, on the traffickers’ orders, tried desperately to eliminate it”, the police stated in a press release.
The Italian navy said it was handing out life preservers to “numerous” migrants on yet another boat.
In Calais, nightly attempts by large groups of migrants to force their way through the rail tunnel linking France and Britain have provoked public anger and severely disrupted the flow of goods between the two countries.
Hundreds of people have been rescued but at least 25 bodies have been found. Six other survivors were evacuated by helicopters for treatment.
More than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died so far this year trying to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 during the whole of last year, the global Organisation for Migration said.
But Cochetel, who has worked with the UNHCR for three decades across many African and Asian countries, said he had never seen anything like what is happening in Greece.
Their fishing boat, believed to have been carrying more than 600 people, ran into difficulty about 15 nautical miles off Libya and tipped over when rescuers neared, after frantic migrants rushed to one side in their desperation to be saved.
About 800 of the thousands of people who had to evacuate from a huge and fierce Northern California wildfire have been allowed to return, but for some the relief quickly turned to grief when they found only…
These people would have had nearly no chance to escape, experts said. One survivor, and not using a life vest, was noticed floating on his again.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that EU governments have a duty to help the flood of migrants arriving in Europe and not cave in to “populist” demands to turn them back.
There they set sail in flimsy motorised rubber dinghies or rickety old fishing boats.
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“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have lost their lives, the survivors and the rescuers for whom this is an extremely hard operation”, Coveney said. Only 28 people survived, including two suspected smugglers.
