- author, George Wright
- role, BBC News
At least 11 people have been killed and more than 60 are missing after two ships wrecked off the coast of southern Italy, rescue teams said.
German charity REQSHIP said on Monday it had rescued 51 people from a wooden boat that sank near the island of Lampedusa and found the bodies of 10 others trapped on the lower deck.
In a separate incident on the same day, more than 60 people were reported missing, 26 of whom are feared to be children, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
The boat was carrying migrants who had departed from Libya and Turkey, a UN agency said.
The survivors of the shipwreck off Lampedusa were handed over to the Italian Coast Guard and brought ashore on Monday morning, while the dead were being towed to the island, according to RESQSHIP.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a joint statement that the boat had left Libya and was carrying migrants from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The other sunken ship was found about 125 miles off the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria, authorities said.
Of the 12 survivors, one died after disembarking, according to the Italian coast guard.
MSF’s Shakila Mohammadi said she had heard from survivors that 66 people were missing, including at least 26 children, some just a few months old.
“The entire family from Afghanistan is believed to have died. They left Turkey eight days ago and were in the sea for three to four days. They said they had no life jackets and no boats had stopped to rescue them,” she said in a statement.
The Mediterranean Sea is known as the most dangerous migration route in the world.
More than 23,500 migrants have died or gone missing in the area since 2014, according to UN data.