Hundreds of migrants feared dead in shipwreck off Libya

Africa, Europe, News April 19, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

Last week, 400 migrants were presumed dead in the sinking of another ship near the Libyan coast

As many as 700 migrants, including men, women and children hoping to reach safely to Europe, are feared to have drowned in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast.

The incident could prove to be the worst disaster yet involving migrants being smuggled to Europe as it comes just days after 400 others drowned last week in a similar tragic incident.

A major rescue operation is under way in the Mediterranean after the incident. Italian coastguards have retrieved 28 survivors so far and about 20 bodies, according to the interior ministry, after the boat went down overnight about 60 miles (96km) off the Libyan coast and 120 miles (193km) south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Antonino Iraso, an officer with the Italian tax police, whose ships are involved in the search-and-rescue operation, told Italian television the teams have sighted an oil slick, floating life jackets and fragments of wood in the area where the boat sank.

“They are men and women like us, our brothers seeking a better life, starving, persecuted, wounded, exploited, victims of war,” said Pope Francis during his weekly Sunday address. He appealed to the international community “to react decisively and quickly to see to it that such tragedies are not repeated.”

The 20 meter-long vessel sank 70 miles from the Libyan coast, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, as a large merchant ship approached it. A survivor told the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR that 700 people on board, hopeful the ship would save them, moved to one side, toppling the boat.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said details were still “nebulous” and that he couldn’t estimate the total death count.

If the death toll is confirmed, it will bring to 1,500 the total number of people who died this year seeking to reach Europe.

In European capitals, leaders pledged to confront the crisis. French President Francois Hollande said the EU had to do more, telling Canal+ television that rescue and disaster prevention efforts needed “more boats, more over flights and a much more intense battle against people trafficking.”

Last week, 400 migrants were presumed dead in the sinking of another ship near the Libyan coast. The deaths have raised calls for a more robust search and rescue of the seas between Libya and Europe amid a surge in migration between the Middle East and Africa toward Italy.

The route from Libya to the tinyian island of Lampedusa has become the deadliest migrant route in the world. If the deaths are confirmed, it would mark one of the largest losses of migrants’ lives and bring to about 1,600 the number of people who have died since the start of the year in attempting to make the passage. For all of 2014, nearly 3,200 died on that route, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.

The flow of migrants has increased due to fine spring weather over the last few weeks. About 20,000 migrants have made it to the Italian coast this year, according to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).