9 migrants found dead by Italian Coast Guard after shipwreck
Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather, and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy’s coast guard said on Thursday.
The Italian Coast Guard said it received a cooperation request from the Maltese search and rescue authority after the boat capsized on Wednesday approximately 50 km southeast of the island of Lampedusa.
The Coast Guard said it dispatched its patrol boat to the scene, which “rescued 22 survivors and recovered 9 deceased individuals, including a baby.”
The Coast Guard said the rescue operations “were particularly challenging due to adverse weather and sea conditions in the area with waves up to 2.50 meters.”
The nationality of the boat’s passengers was not known. Still, Lampedusa, which sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta, and the larger Italian island of Sicily, is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the EU. “New terrible shipwreck near Lampedusa during a rescue operation,” UNHCR Communication Officer Filippo Ungaro posted on X late on Wednesday.
The survivors, taken to Lampedusa, were “in a state of hypothermia and shock,” he added.
An aircraft from the Italian Coast Guard was conducting aerial searches for the missing items in the area of the shipwreck.
In a separate operation, the Italian coast guard said it rescued 37 migrants “who were at the mercy of the waves aboard a small wooden boat about 7 meters long” off the coast of Lampedusa on Wednesday.
The EU Parliament on Wednesday adopted a sweeping reform of Europe’s asylum policies that will harden border procedures and force all 27 nations to share responsibility. EU governments — a majority of which previously approved the pact — welcomed its adoption.
The EU Parliament’s main political groups overcame opposition from far-right and far-left parties to pass the new migration and asylum pact — enshrining a difficult overhaul nearly a decade in the making.