Seventy-six migrants had been presumed lifeless after their boat, which departed from Libya, sank off the coast of Tunisia, the United Nations migration company stated on Wednesday.
“Sadly they’re loads,” stated Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the company, the Worldwide Group for Migration. “But in addition sadly, this isn’t something new.”
The boat carried about 100 individuals when it left the Libyan port metropolis of Zuwara most certainly sure for Italy, and solely 24 of them had been rescued, the Tunisian department of the I.O.M. stated on Twitter. The Tunisian Coast Guard, which rescued the shipwrecked individuals on Tuesday, solely discovered one particular person lifeless within the water, Mr. Di Giacomo stated, including that the 75 different individuals who went lacking had been actually additionally lifeless.
“Within the sea individuals drown in jiffy,” he stated.
The shipwreck brings the whole variety of deaths within the central Mediterranean Sea this yr to over 650, in keeping with the I.O.M., a determine much like the one from the identical interval final yr.
“We’re constant,” stated Mr. Di Giacomo. “Individuals maintain dying precisely like final yr.”
In a separate incident late Tuesday, a ship from the Spanish N.G.O. Open Arms, which operates search and rescue operations at sea, discovered one other boat in hassle close to Tunisian territorial waters, the N.G.O. stated on Twitter. The group stated its personnel tried to distribute life vests to the passengers, who numbered greater than 100, and known as for assist to Italy and Malta, however as they waited for a response, the overcrowded, picket boat, that had already taken on water, capsized, and the migrants fell at sea.
The group stated it rescued the migrants from the water, however officers weren’t certain if a few of them went lacking.
“It was night time, and we couldn’t know for certain if there have been any corpses or not,” stated Laura Lanuza, a spokeswoman for the N.G.O., including that the migrants had departed from the Libyan port of Abu Kammash and had been headed to Italy. “It was a very dramatic state of affairs.”
On Wednesday, 110 migrants had been on board the group’s Astral crusing boat, however Gerard Canals, the group’s head of operations, stated they didn’t have house, meals or water for the entire individuals on board.
“We want a secure port to disembark them,” Mr. Canals said in a Twitter video. “We want the authorities to behave instantly and to offer a secure port.”
This yr, 17,900 migrants arrived in Italy by boat, in contrast with 13,700 in the identical interval final yr, in keeping with the Inside Ministry. Regardless of efforts by the European Union to restrict the variety of African migrants and asylum seekers, 1000’s nonetheless undertake this harmful journey, although the numbers are dwarfed by these of 2016. In that yr, on the peak of the migrant disaster, greater than 180,000 individuals arrived in Italy by sea.
Mr. Di Giacomo, the I.O.M. spokesman, stated that the relative improve this yr doesn’t justify alarms a few “worrisome improve in arrivals by sea.”
However he added that whereas Europe doesn’t face an emergency when it comes to numbers, “it’s clear that there’s a humanitarian emergency as a result of individuals proceed to die.”
The variety of arrivals has been a lot greater for Ukrainian refugees, with greater than 120,000 who’ve entered Italy because the begin of the conflict, in keeping with the Inside Ministry.
“This isn’t corresponding to 18,000 who got here in 5 months by the ocean,” stated Mr. Di Giacomo. “Now we are able to put every thing into perspective.”
