Migrant death toll rises in Italy
64 dead, dozens feared missing after shipwreck near coast
STECCATO DI CUTRO, Italy — The death toll rose to at least 64 in the migrant tragedy off Italy’s southern coast after rescue crews recovered several more bodies Monday, driving home once again the desperate and dangerous boat crossings of people seeking to reach Europe. Dozens more were believed to be missing.
At least eight of the dead were children who perished after a wooden boat broke up in stormy seas on the shoals off the Calabrian coast Sunday. Eighty people survived.
“Many of them didn’t know how to swim and they saw people disappear in the waves; they saw them die,” said Giovanna Di Benedetto of Doctors Without Borders, which sent psychologists to help survivors.
More were feared dead given survivor accounts that the boat, which set off from Turkey last week, was carrying about 170 people.
State TV quoted Carabinieri paramilitary police as saying Monday night that two more bodies were recovered later in the day, but a few hours later the rescue coordination center said only one body had been recovered in the afternoon. The discrepancy wasn’t immediately explained.
The center also said in a statement that two Coast Guard vessels and one border police boat would keep up the search overnight, while this morning, two helicopters and specialized divers would resume their search.
Authorities in the southern city of Crotone asked relatives to provide descriptions and photos of loved ones to help identify the dead in a makeshift morgue at a sports arena.
Fazal Amin, himself a migrant from Pakistan, waited outside the stadium in Crotone for information about a friend’s brother in Turkey whose phone stopped working.
“He just wants to know if he is dead or alive,” Amin said.
Italian authorities rejected criticism of a delayed rescue, noting they had dispatched two rescue boats shortly after the European Union’s border agency spotted the 20-foot boat Saturday night as it headed toward shore. The rescuers had to turn back because of the rough seas, the authorities said.
The beach at Steccato di Cutro, on Calabria’s Ionian coast, was littered Monday with the splintered remains of the migrant vessel as well as with passengers’ belongings: a toddler’s tiny pink sneaker, Mickey Mouse pajama pants and a yellow plastic pencil case decorated with pandas. A few life jackets were scattered amid the debris.
The United Nations and Doctors Without Borders said many of the victims were Afghans, including members of large families, as well as Pakistanis, Syrians and Iraqis. Afghans were the second top nationality to seek asylum in the EU last year, and have increasingly fled the spiraling security, humanitarian and economic troubles that followed the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
Sixteen Pakistanis survived the shipwreck, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said Monday on Twitter. Sharif said the survivors told authorities that 20 people from the country had boarded the vessel.
On Monday, two coast guard vessels searched the seas north to south off Steccato di Cutro while a helicopter flew overhead and a four-wheel vehicle patrolled the beach. A strong wind whipping the seas churned up splinters of the boat, gas tanks, food containers and shoes.
Italy’s Sky TG24 said at least three people had been detained on suspicion they helped organize the trip from Izmir, Turkey.
Italy is a prime destination for migrant smugglers, especially for traffickers launching boats from Libyan shores, but also from Turkey. According to U.N. figures, arrivals from the Turkish route accounted for 15% of the 105,000 migrants who arrived on Italian shores last year, with nearly half of those fleeing from Afghanistan.