Nearly 60 dead, dozens missing after migrant boat breaks up
ROME – A wooden boat crowded with migrants smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart before dawn Sunday off the Italian coast, authorities said. Rescuers recovered nearly 60 bodies, and dozens more people were missing in the rough waters.
Officials feared the death toll could top 100 because some survivors indicated the boat had as many as 200 passengers when it set out from Turkey, U.N. refugee and migration agencies said.
At least 80 people were found alive, including some who reached the shore after the shipwreck just off Calabria’s coastline along the Ionian Sea, the Italian Coast Guard said. One of the agency’s motorboats rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a boy.
As sundown approached, firefighters said 59 bodies had been found.
One man was taken into custody for questioning after fellow survivors indicated he was a trafficker, state TV said.
Italian state TV quoted survivors as saying the boat set out five days ago from Turkey.
Standing next to the wreckage on the beach, a reporter for Italian RAI state TV noted a life preserver bearing the word “Smyrna,” a Turkish port also known as Izmir.
More than 170 migrants were estimated to have been aboard the ship, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration said in a joint statement.
Among them were “children and entire families,” according to the U.N. statement. Most of the passengers were from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.
Earlier, in an indication of the difficulty in establishing how many passengers had set out on the voyage, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said about 200 people had been crowded into a 66-foot boat.
The boat struck the reefs in windwhipped seas. Three chunks of the vessel ended up on the beach near the town of Steccato di Cutro, where splintered pieces of bright blue wood littered the sand like matchsticks.
“All of the survivors are adults,” Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione said. ”Unfortunately, all the children are among the missing or were found dead on the beach.” A baby and young twins were reported among the dead.
Rescuers said two men who survived were spotted trying to save children by holding them over their heads as waves buffeted them. But the children died, state TV said.
Motorboats were expected to continue searching through the night, despite worsening weather conditions.
The rescue operation involved a helicopter and police aircraft, as well as vessels from state firefighter squads, the Coast Guard and border police. Local fishermen also joined in the search.
The bodies were brought to the stadium in the nearest city, Crotone.
A priest said a few of the bodies washed up on a stretch of beach near his town. “While I blessed them, I was asking why do we arrive after the deaths,” the Rev. Rosario Morrone told state TV. “We need to get there before.”
Many of the survivors, wrapped in blankets and quilts, were taken by bus to a temporary shelter. State TV said 22 survivors were taken to a hospital.
“It’s an enormous tragedy,” Crotone Mayor Vincenzo Voce told RAI. “In solidarity, the city will find places in the cemetery” for the dead.
In 2022, about 105,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores, 38,000 more than in 2021, according to Interior Ministry figures.
According to U.N. figures, arrivals from the Turkish route accounted for 15% of the total number, with nearly half of those fleeing from Afghanistan.
In a statement released by the premier’s office Sunday, Meloni expressed “her deep sorrow for the many human lives torn away by human traffickers.”
“It’s inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the ‘price’ of a ticket paid by them in the false prospect for a safe voyage,” said Meloni, a far-right leader whose governing allies include the anti-migrant League party.
She vowed to crack down on departures arranged by human smugglers and to press fellow European Union leaders to help.
Opposition parties pointed to Sunday’s tragedy as proof of the flaws in Italy’s migration policy.
“Condemning only the smugglers, as the center-right is doing now, is hypocrisy,” Laura Ferrara, a European Parliament lawmaker from the populist 5-Star Movement, said in a statement.
“The truth is that the EU today doesn’t offer effective alternatives for those who are forced to abandon their country of origin.”
Italian President Sergio Mattarella called on the European Union to “finally concretely assume the responsibility of managing the migratory phenomenon to remove it from the traffickers of human beings.” He said the EU should support development in countries where young people who see no future decide to risk dangerous sea journeys.