At least 45 migrants were killed when their wooden boat hit a reef and broke apart off southern Italy just before dawn on Sunday, the Italian coast guard and UN agencies said. Japan. Survivors pointed out that dozens of other people may be missing on the boat that departed from Turkey.
The Italian coast guard said at least 80 people were found alive, “some of whom made it to shore after the shipwreck”.
Exact numbers are difficult to establish. A reporter for Italy’s state TV channel RAI, standing next to rubble on the beach, quoted local authorities as saying 60 bodies had been found. He pointed with his foot to a lifebuoy marked “Smyrna”, a Turkish port also known as Izmir.
Authorities said the bodies wrapped in cloth were taken to the sports stadium in the nearest city, Crotone.
More than 170 migrants are estimated to have been on board the ship, two UN agencies, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, said in a joint statement quoting the survivors.
Among those on board were “children and entire families”, according to the United Nations statement, with most of the passengers coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.
The boat hit a reef in the rough sea, being blown away by strong winds. Several pieces of debris were scattered on the beach along Calabria’s Ionian coast, where splintered bright blue wood strewn across the sand like matchsticks.
Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione said: “All survivors are adults. Unfortunately, all children are among those missing or found dead on the beach. sea”. die.
Reporting from the village of Steccato di Cutro, state television quoted survivors as saying the boat had departed from Turkey five days earlier.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the migrants were crammed into a 20-meter (66-foot) boat.
Italian authorities say a rescue operation involving a helicopter and police plane, along with ships from state fire brigade, coast guard and border police, is underway. conducted on Sunday. Local fishermen also joined the search for survivors.
A pair of water rescue firefighters struggled with gusts of wind and waves several meters high that hit the beach as they brought a body ashore.
A local priest said he blessed the bodies while they were still lying on the beach.
One survivor was detained for questioning after survivors indicated he was a trafficker, state broadcaster Rai said.
Some survivors managed to stay warm by wrapping blankets and blankets. They were taken by bus to a makeshift shelter. State television said 22 survivors were taken to hospital for treatment.
Pope Francis told the faithful in St Peter’s Square that he was heartbroken by the news. “I pray for each and every one of them, for the missing and other migrants who survive.” The Pope added that he is also praying for the rescuers “and for those who welcome” the migrants.
“It’s a huge tragedy,” Crotone Mayor Vincenzo Voce told state broadcaster RAI. “In a spirit of solidarity, the city will find a place in the cemetery” for the dead, Voce said.
According to Interior Ministry figures, in 2022, about 105,000 migrants have reached the Italian coast, about 38,000 more than in 2021.
According to United Nations figures, those arriving from the Turkish route make up 15% of the total, with nearly half of them fleeing Afghanistan.
In a statement released by the prime minister’s office on Sunday, Meloni expressed her “deep sadness over the many lives taken by traffickers.”
“It is inhumane to trade the lives of men, women and children for the ‘price’ of a ticket that they have to pay in the vain scenario of a safe trip,” said Meloni, a travel expert. Right-wing leaders have ruling allies including opponents, said. – Migration Coalition Party.
She vowed to pursue a crackdown on leavers arranged by traffickers and pressed European Union leaders to help Italy in her mission.
However, opposition parties have pointed to Sunday’s tragedy as evidence that Italy’s migration policy is gravely flawed.
Laura Ferrara, a European Parliament lawmaker from the populist Five Star Movement, said: “Just condemning smugglers, as the centre-right is doing now, is hypocrisy.
“The truth is that the EU today does not offer effective alternatives for those forced to leave their homeland,” Ferrara said in a statement.
As well as the route from Turkey, another route chartered by traffickers crosses the Mediterranean from the coast of Libya, where migrants often endure brutal detention conditions for months, before when they were allowed to board an old wooden dinghy or fishing boat to the Italian coast. The route is considered one of the most dangerous.
Another fierce war began on the coast of Tunisia, with many of those boats reaching the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy, or the beaches of Sardinia, often without rescue.
Meloni’s government has focused on complicating efforts by humanitarian ships to make multiple rescues in the central Mediterranean by designating them discharging ports along the northern coast of the Mediterranean. Italy, which means ships need more time to get back into the sea after loading the rescued people on board, often hundreds of migrants. safely ashore.
Humanitarian organizations have complained that the crackdown also includes an order for charity boats not to stay at sea after the first rescue operation in the hopes of making other rescues but to immediately go to port. specified safety. Violators will be severely fined and the lifeboat confiscated.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella called on the European Union to “finally assume concretely the responsibility of managing the phenomenon of migration in order to remove it from traffickers”. risk perilous journeys at sea towards what they hope will be a better life.
Italy has complained bitterly for years that EU countries have faltered in accepting a number of arrivals, many of whom are looking for families or jobs in Northern Europe.
