11 dead, dozens missing after shipwrecks off Italian coast – BBC News

At least 11 people are dead and more than 60 are missing after two shipwrecks off the coast of southern Italy, rescuers say.

German charity RESQSHIP said it had pulled 51 people from a sinking, wooden boat and found 10 bodies stuck on the lower deck near the island of Lampedusa on Monday.

In a separate incident on the same day, more than 60 people were reported missing, including 26 believed to be children, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said.

The boats were carrying migrants from Libya and Türkiye, UN agencies said.

Survivors of the shipwreck near Lampedusa were handed over to the Italian coastguard on Monday morning and taken ashore, while the dead were being taken to the island, according to RESQSHIP.

The boat had set sail from Libya and was carrying migrants from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN children's agency UNICEF said in a joint statement.

Another shipwreck was located about 125 miles off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy, the agencies said.

The Italian coast guard said one of the 12 survivors died after disembarking.

MSF's Shakilla Mohammadi said she had heard from survivors that 66 people were unaccounted for, including at least 26 children, as young as a few months old.

“The entire Afghan family is presumed dead. They left Turkey eight days ago and were in the water for three or four days. They told us they had no life vests and some ships did not stop to help them,” he said in a message. said statement

The Mediterranean Sea is the deadliest known migration route in the world.

More than 23,500 migrants have died or gone missing in its waters since 2014, according to UN data.