Rome - Nearly 250 people were feared dead in new shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, bringing the number of dead or missing
migrants on that route to a record 4 220 for this year, UN organisations said Thursday.
“According to survivors brought to Lampedusa, shipwrecks were 2. About 240 victims. Exact numbers to be confirmed,” Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the Rome office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), wrote on Twitter.
On the phone with dpa, Di Giacomo added that there were 110-113 missing from one capsized dinghy, and 128 from a second rubber
vessel. Among the 12 bodies recovered, there were three children, and three survivors were hospitalised, one in a critical state, he said.
Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the Italian office of UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, tweeted similar news: “As new rescue operations ongoing in the Mediterranean, survivors are telling us about 2 new shipwrecks. At least 239 persons are missing.”
The Italian Coastguard said 766 migrants were rescued and the body of a woman was recovered on Thursday in tough sea conditions.
A Spanish navy vessel that is part of EU’s Frontex sea border mission, as well as boats run by the non-governmental groups MOAS, Save the Children and Jugend Rettet took part in the rescue operations.
The reports came a day after the Italian coastguard said 29 people were rescued and 12 bodies recovered in rough seas about 25 kilometres north of the Libyan coast.
The latest accidents bring to 4 220 the number of dead or missing migrants from Mediterranean sea crossings this year, “the highest figure ever recorded,” well above the 3 777 recorded in 2015, Di Giacomo said.
“So many lives could be saved through more resettlement and legal pathways to protection,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi tweeted.
UNHCR has been arguing that an expansion of legal immigration possibilities would be an effective way to combat people smugglers and their unsafe vessels.
Italy became this year the main entry point for EU-bound sea migrants, after their previously preferred channel from Turkey to Greece was effectively sealed by a controversial EU-Turkey readmission agreement.
In their latest update in Berlin, German security authorities said approximately 77 000 refugees are stranded in south-eastern Europe since the closure of the so-called Balkan route into the European Union.
In Greece alone there are 62 000 refugees, 15 000 of whom are on islands in the Aegean Sea, German newspaper Bild reported Thursday.
However, despite the borders being closed migrants still managed to cross or circumvent them.
In Serbia, the number of asylum-seekers trying to reach western Europe rose to 6 300, compared with just 2 000 at the end of June. The majority were waiting for an opportunity to cross the borders to Croatia or Hungary.
Although Balkan countries and Austria closed down the route in mid-February, 50 000 people have still managed to reach Germany since then, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said in September, citing his German colleague Angela Merkel.
SAPA-dpa