245 migrants feared dead

ROME — Two wrecks of migrant ships in the Mediterranean have claimed as many as 245 lives, including those of at least five children, according to survivor accounts given to U.N. agencies and authorities in Sicily, where dozens of rescued migrants were taken.

Survivors of one wreck, some of them hospitalized in Pozzallo, Sicily, where they were being treated for hypothermia and exhaustion, told authorities that traffickers had crammed up to 140 people, apparently all from central African countries, into a motorized rubber dinghy designed to hold at most 20 people.

The dinghy started deflating on one end, the passengers quickly shifted their positions in the boat, and the craft tipped over, authorities said, based on survivors’ descriptions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The dinghy wasn’t equipped with any distress signaling equipment. The 52 survivors clung for hours to the wreckage of the dinghy until they were spotted by a patrol plane and rescued by a Danish cargo ship, which was dispatched to their aid by the Italian Coast Guard.

One survivor was a Nigerian woman, whose 5month-old baby died. The infant’s corpse was one of the few bodies recovered, authorities said. “I lost my baby, she drowned, but God didn’t allow me to die,” the woman, who asked to be identified only by her initials, S.J., said outside the migrant processing center in Pozzallo.

The woman, 22, of Benin City, Nigeria, reflected on her journey that began in March 2016 in her homeland and offered these words for other Nigerians.

“I want to tell my fellow people ... to not come; it’s not easy to come here,” she said. “The sea is not friendly, many things happen.”

Even at the moment that the cargo ship was about to pluck the survivors to safety, the woman recalled, some just couldn’t hold on any longer.

“Even as they were rescued, one person died, a baby died,” she said.

She said 82 people died and 52 survived.

Police in Sicily said that many survivors recounted that among those who drowned was one of the smugglers who had been steering the boat.

“They couldn’t even remember who saved them. They were completely shocked and traumatized,” said Carlotta Sami, Romebased spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency.