At least 30 migrants are missing after two boats sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to testimonies from survivors, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Sunday.
Thirty-four other migrants, who had found themselves trapped in a rocky area on the coast of Lampedusa, were able to be rescued.
About 28 passengers from one boat and three from a second are missing at sea after they sank on Saturday due to poor weather conditions, IOM said.
The boats were small metal craft apparently departing Thursday from Sfax, Tunisia.
The Italian Coast Guard was able to recover 57 survivors and found two bodies, those of a woman and a minor.
They released vivid footage of the rescue on Sunday, showing the migrants rising and falling with the huge waves, as the coastguard vessel also rose and dipped trying to reach them.
We see migrants trying to climb aboard the ship tossed by the waves, while others cling desperately to each other, forming a human chain.
After speaking with survivors, IOM officials estimate that “at least 30 people are missing,” IOM press officer Flavio Di Giacomo told AFP.
An investigation into the shipwrecks has been opened in Agrigento, Sicily.
Agrigento police chief Emmanuele Ricifari, in charge of the investigation, stressed that the bad weather was announced. “Those who allowed them to leave, or forced them to leave, are unscrupulous criminal lunatics,” he told Italian media.
“A very rough sea is forecast for the coming days. Let’s hope that they will stop “to leave people, “by this sea, it is to send them to the slaughterhouse”, he added.
As the bad weather persisted on Sunday, rescue teams managed to bring migrants trapped in a rocky area on the coast of Lampedusa to safety.
The 34 migrants, including two pregnant women, had been there since Friday evening after strong winds drove their boat onto the rocks.
The Red Cross provided them with food, water, clothing and survival blankets, but the coastguards were unable to rescue them from the sea due to the height of the waves.
Helped by air force devices, the rescuers winched them on Sunday to the top of the 140 meters of the cliff.
The Central Mediterranean route from North Africa to Europe is the deadliest in the world.
More than 1,800 people have died since the beginning of the year trying to borrow it, according to Mr. Di Giacomo. That’s almost 900 more than last year.
“The truth is that this figure is probably higher,” said the press officer. “Many bodies are found at sea, which suggests that there are many shipwrecks that we never hear about.”
The number of bodies found at sea has increased, especially on what is called the Tunisian route, which has become increasingly dangerous due to the type of boats used, Di Giacomo added.
The smugglers take the sub-Saharan migrants to sea “on iron boats which cost less than the usual wooden boats but are totally unsuitable for navigation at sea, they break easily and sink”, he explained. And often migrants have to suffer the theft of the engines of their boats at sea so that the smugglers can reuse them.
Nearly 92,000 migrants have arrived on Italian shores since the start of the year, twice as many as the same period last year, according to Italian authorities.
06/08/2023 18:04:56 – Rome (AFP) – © 2023 AFP