700 feared drowned as Med crisis deepens
MORE than 700 migrants are feared to have drowned in at least three separate Mediterranean shipwrecks in recent days.
The unseaworthy and over-loaded boats sank south of Italy on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week.
The crossing has become a key route since the EU’s deal with Turkey, and the tightening of borders in Greece and the Balkans, cut crossings to the Greek islands.
Italian authorities said the rescue of more than 600 migrants off Libya on Saturday took the weekly total to more than 13,000. Carlotta Sami, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said an estimated 100 people are missing from a shipwreck on Wednesday, while about 550 others are missing from a boat that capsized on Thursday morning.
The boat was carrying about 670 people. Some 104 survived and 15 bodies were recovered. In a shipwreck on Friday, Miss Sami said 135 people were rescued, 45 bodies were recovered and an unknown number of people are missing.
UNHCR spokesman Federico Fossi said: ‘The situation is chaotic, we cannot be sure of numbers.’
Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said those drowned could number 00.