ROME (AP) – At least 43 migrants died when their overcrowded wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs and broke away from southern Italy before sunrise on Sunday, the Italian Coast Guard said. According to reports, survivors said dozens more may be missing.
“So far, 80 people have been recovered alive, some of whom managed to reach shore after the shipwreck. and 43 bodies were found along the coast,” the Coast Guard said in a statement issued just before noon.
Italian state television later reported that 45 cloth-covered bodies were taken to the sports stadium in the nearby town of Crotone.
There were also various estimates of how many people were on board the boat when it struck the reefs in violently rough seas. Some of the debris landed on a stretch of beach on Calabria’s Ionian coast, where splinted light blue pieces of wood were scattered like matches in the sand.
State television reported from the village of Steccato di Cutro, quoting survivors who said the boat had left Turkey five days earlier with more than 200 passengers.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said around 200 migrants were crammed into a 20-metre boat.
The Italian Coast Guard, which coordinated the rescue, said about 120 migrants were believed to be on board.
Italian authorities said a rescue operation was underway on Sunday using a helicopter and a police plane, as well as vessels belonging to the state fire service, coast guard and border police. Local fishermen also took part in the search for survivors.
Two water rescuers from the fire brigade had to contend with gusts of wind and meter-high waves when they brought a body ashore.
A local priest said he blessed bodies while they were still on the beach.
A survivor was taken into custody for questioning after survivors claimed he was a human trafficker, state TV Rai said.
In a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, Meloni “expressed her deep sadness at the many lives taken by traffickers”.
“It is inhumane to trade the lives of men, women and children for the ‘price’ of a ticket they have paid for in the false prospect of safe travel,” said Meloni, a far-right leader whose ruling allies include the Anti-Party the migrant league.
She vowed to crack down on departures arranged by people smugglers and to urge other European Union leaders to help Italy in their search.
Trying to keep warm, some of the survivors wrapped themselves in blankets and quilts and were taken by bus to makeshift shelters.
According to state television, 22 survivors were taken to hospital for treatment.
A Coast Guard motorboat rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a boy in rough seas, the agency said in a statement. Fire boats, including rescue divers, recovered 28 bodies, including three that were dragged far from the wreck by a strong current.
According to Italian news reports, among the dead were an 8-year-old boy and a baby a few months old.
Pope Francis lamented on Sunday that children were among the victims of the shipwreck.
Francis told the faithful in St. Peter’s Square: “I pray for each of them, for those who are missing and for the other migrants who survived.” The Pope added that he also prays for the rescuers “and for those who welcome the migrants “.
“This is an enormous tragedy,” Crotone Mayor Vincenzo Voce told state television RAI.
“Out of solidarity, the city will find places for the dead in the cemetery,” said Voce.
Information on the nationalities of the migrants was not immediately provided in the reports.
It was also not clear where the boat had departed from, but migrant ships arriving in Calabria usually depart from Turkish or Egyptian coasts. Many of these boats, including sailboats, often reach remote stretches of Italy’s long southern coast without the assistance of the Coast Guard or humanitarian rescue vessels.
Another sea route used by traffickers, considered one of the deadliest for migration, crosses the central Mediterranean from the coast of Libya, where migrants often endure months of brutal detention conditions before they can board inflatable boats or aging wooden fishing boats, heading towards the Italian coast.
Most migrants leaving Libya are fleeing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa or Asian countries, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, not war or persecution, and risk asylum seekers being turned down by Italian authorities.
Another heavily used smuggling boat route starts off the coast of Tunisia, with many of these boats reaching the southern Italian island of Lampedusa or Sardinian beaches, often without requiring rescue.
The Meloni government has focused on hampering efforts by humanitarian boats to conduct multiple rescue operations in the central Mediterranean by assigning them disembarkation ports along Italy’s north coast, meaning ships are taking more time to return to sea, after bringing on board the rescued, often hundreds of migrants, safely ashore.
Humanitarian organizations have complained that the raid also includes an instruction to the charity boats not to remain at sea after the initial rescue operation in hopes of conducting further rescue operations, but to proceed immediately to their assigned safe haven. Violators face high fines and the confiscation of the rescue ship.
Opposition parties pointed to Sunday’s tragedy as evidence that Italy’s migration policy was gravely flawed.
“Just condemning the smugglers, as the centre-right is doing now, is hypocrisy,” said Laura Ferrara, MEP from the populist Five Star Movement.
“The truth is that today the EU does not offer effective alternatives for those who are forced to leave their country of origin,” Ferrara said in a statement.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella noted that many of the migrants risking their lives on unseaworthy boats are from Afghanistan and Iran “fleeing extremely difficult conditions”.
Mattarella called on the European Union to “finally take concrete responsibility for tackling the migration phenomenon in order to remove it from the traffickers”. Traveling to what they hope is a better life.
Italy has bitterly complained for years that other EU countries are refusing to take in some of the arrivals, many of whom are aiming to find families or jobs in northern Europe.
__
Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration