Around 30 migrants are missing after a shipwreck off the coast of Libya during an attempt to rescue a cargo ship sailing in the area, the Italian coast guard said on Sunday.
“During the rescue operations, while the migrants were being fully transferred, the boat overturned: 17 people were rescued, but around 30 others are missing,” the Coast Guard said.
This weekend, NGOs reported that a boat carrying 47 people was about a hundred kilometers off the Libyan coast. Rescue organization Alarm Phone, which operates a hotline for migrants in distress, was the first to report migrants drowned on Sunday.
Alarm Phone said it informed the Rome Relief Coordination Center on Saturday of the boat’s presence in distress, as well as the Maltese and Libyan authorities.
A merchant ship heading for the migrant boat reported difficulties conducting a rescue due to the bad weather.
Meanwhile, the Libyan authorities in charge of search and rescue efforts in the area have reported that they have no boats available and are asking for help from Rome, which has three merchant ships that were in the area to the boat that Coast Guard, sent called.
“Migrant transfer operations began at dawn with one of the four merchant vessels that had reached the boat in difficulty,” the Coast Guard said.
After picking up 17 migrants, the ship “Froland” went to Malta to disembark two migrants in urgent need of medical assistance.
The search operations continue.