Dozens of Migrants Drown Near Italy
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ROME (Worthy News) – Dozens of migrants fleeing war, persecution, and poverty, including several children, have died after a boat carrying them sank off Italy’s Lampedusa Island in the Strait of Sicily, survivors said.
Among 41 migrants who died were at least three children, according to witnesses speaking to Italian officials.
Four people, originally from the Ivory Coast and Guinea, survived the incident and told the Italian Coast Guard they had been traveling on a 20-foot-long metal boat.
The vessel had left the Tunisian City of Sfax, a notorious hotbed for migrant smuggling, on Thursday carrying about 45 people when a wave capsized it.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said a pregnant woman and a young child were among the dead from the two boats carrying migrants had sunk in rough seas.
“This time, a pregnant mother is among those who have lost their lives off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy. An 18-month-old child traveling with their mother has also died,” added UNICEF Italy Coordinator Nicola Dell’Arciprete.
MANY CHILDREN DIE
She said in the first six months of 2023, at least 289 children died or disappeared trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.
Dell’Arciprete urged “those in power to create safer pathways for migration and asylum in the European Union, and for coordinated search and rescue operations that help prevent deaths at sea.”
Forty-three migrants drowned in July as a boat carrying more than 120 people from Libya attempted to cross the Mediterranean, sinking off of Tunisia.
In April, an international rescue effort led by the Italian Coast Guard was mounted when at least 400 migrants were adrift on a boat and in danger of capsizing.
In 2022 1,368 people were either dead or missing in sea mishaps as over 105,000 thousand people made it to Italy via the Mediterranean Sea, official data shows.
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