At least 43 migrants died when their overcrowded wooden boat crashed into rocky reefs near southern Italy at dawn on Sunday, the Italian Coast Guard said.
“So far, 80 people have been recovered alive, some of whom made it to shore after the shipwreck, and 43 bodies have been found along the shoreline,” the Coast Guard statement said shortly before noon.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the migrants were crammed into a 66-foot-long boat in «inclement weather conditions.» In a statement issued by his office, he expressed «his deep sorrow for the many human lives taken by human traffickers.»
«It is inhumane to trade the lives of men, women and children for the ‘price’ of a ticket paid by them in the false prospect of safe travel,» said Meloni, a far-right leader whose government allies include anti- -migrants league party
He vowed to use his leadership to push for a crackdown on outings organized by people smugglers and to pressure other European Union leaders to help Italy in their search.
A piece of the boat, along with piles of splintered wood, littered the beach at Steccato di Cutro, part of Calabria’s coastline along the Ionian Sea. Some of the survivors tried to keep warm, wrapped in what appeared to be colored blankets or sheets.
A helicopter and motorboats were deployed in the search efforts, including boats from state firefighters, border police and the coast guard.
A Coast Guard launch rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a child in rough seas, it said in a statement. Fire boats, including rescue divers, recovered 28 bodies, including three swept by a strong current away from the wreckage.
The Italian news agency AGI said that among the bodies was that of a baby of a few months.
Pope Francis lamented Sunday that children were among the victims of the shipwreck.
Francis told the faithful in Saint Peter’s Square: «I pray for each one of them, for the disappeared and the other migrants who survived.» The pontiff added that he also prayed for rescuers «and for those who welcome» migrants.
«It’s a huge tragedy,» Crotone mayor Vincenzo Voce told RAI state television. “In solidarity, the city will search for places in the cemetery” for the dead, Voce added.
Details about the nationalities of the migrants were not immediately provided in the reports.
It was also not clear where the boat had left from, but migrant boats arriving in Calabria usually leave from the Turkish or Egyptian coasts. Many of these ships, including sailboats, often reach remote stretches of Italy’s long southern coastline without the help of coast guard or humanitarian rescue ships.
Another maritime route used by smugglers, considered one of the deadliest for migration, crosses the central Mediterranean Sea from the Libyan coast, where migrants often endure brutal conditions of detention for months before they can board rubber boats. or old wooden fishing boats, towards the Italian coasts.
Most migrants leaving Libya are fleeing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa or Asian countries, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, not war or persecution, and risk having their asylum claims denied by the Italian authorities .
Another heavily traveled route for smugglers’ ships begins off the coast of Tunisia, and many of these ships reach the southern Italian island of Lampedusa or the beaches of Sardinia, often without the need for rescue.
The Meloni government has focused on complicating the efforts of humanitarian ships to carry out multiple rescues in the central Mediterranean by assigning them landing ports along the northern Italian coasts, meaning the ships need more time to return to the sea after bringing on board those rescued, often hundreds of migrants. , safely to the shore.