At least 19 feared dead in migrant shipwreck in central Mediterranean

ROME (AA) – A migrant shipwreck in the central Mediterranean has left at least 19 people dead, an official at the United Nation’s migration agency said Sunday.

Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), quoted information from Sea-Watch, a German charity that runs a sea rescue mission.

“Another tragic shipwreck caused at least 19 victims. #SeaWatch3 saved 34 migrants who were on a boat capsized in the Mediterranean. Survivors reported that at least 53 people were on board,” Di Giacomo tweeted.

SeaWatch said separately on Twitter that it intervened on Saturday after it “received a mayday call for a boat in distress,” saying that “over 50 people were already in the water.”

“We were able to bring 34 survivors onboard our ship. They reported that 53 people were on the boat initially and that they saw relatives drowning. Our crew also had to witness how for some of the people, any rescue came too late,” the charity added.

The charity’s SeaWatch3 vessel currently has more than 200 migrants on board, following five separate rescue operations in the space of 24 hours. Many “are in urgent need of medical attention,” it said.

The central Mediterranean – crossed by migrants looking to enter Europe via Italy or Malta – is one of the world’s deadliest migration routes. According to the IOM, it claimed more than 435 lives in 2022, and 1,553 over the course of 2021.