At least twenty-six migrants tragically died when two boats sank off the coast of Italy’s Lampedusa island, with approximately ten people still missing, according to officials. Around sixty people were safely rescued after the sinkings in the central Mediterranean, a route described as the world’s most perilous for migrants.
The Italian coastguard reported that the two boats had departed from Tripoli, Libya, earlier on Wednesday before beginning to take on water. It was reported that people climbed onto the second boat when the first started taking on water, which subsequently caused the second vessel to capsize.
The coastguard stated that sixty people have been rescued and disembarked, with at least twenty-six victims in a provisional and still-ongoing toll. The bodies of a newborn, three children, two men, and two women were among the first to be transported to the Lampedusa mortuary on Wednesday.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered her deepest condolences to the victims and vowed to step up efforts to tackle the trafficking of migrants. Her hard-right government, which took office in October 2022, has been focused on cutting the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
Meloni said that stepping up rescue efforts was not enough and that trafficking could be stopped only by preventing irregular departures. The UNHCR refugee agency confirmed that there have been 675 migrant deaths on the central Mediterranean route so far this year alone.
As of Wednesday, 38,263 migrants have arrived on Italian shores this year, which is a number similar to the same time last year. That figure is significantly less than in 2023, when almost 100,000 people had arrived by the middle of August.