The tragedy occurred on the 1stAhem September. At least 20 migrants are missing after a boat sank in the Mediterranean near the Italian island of Lampedusa, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Italian coast guard announced on Wednesday, September 4.
“Twenty people are missing in the Mediterranean after the shipwreck of the 1Ahem September, according to survivors »wrote in X Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR representative in Italy. “The seven survivors, who have been welcomed by our team in Lampedusa, are in critical condition. Many of them have lost loved ones.” in the disaster, he said. The Italian coast guard, meanwhile, reported 21 missing. They said they had been rescued in the morning, less than 20 kilometres from Lampedusa, “a boat adrift, half submerged in water and about to sink, with seven immigrants on board, all men of Syrian nationality”.
Images released by the coast guard show the men in a very small boat, completely filled with water, sliding on a kind of inflated mattress towards the rescuers’ boat.
“The rescued migrants said they left on the 1stAhem September from Libya with 28 people on board, including three minors, of whom 21 fell into the water due to bad weather conditions.They clarified in a press release. The latter are continuing the search for missing persons, even with the help of an aircraft.
More than 3,000 people went missing in the Mediterranean last year
In 2023, more than 3,000 migrants were reported missing after trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). According to figures from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, arrivals by sea have decreased considerably since the beginning of the year: 43,061 people arrived in Italy between 1Ahem January and September 4, compared to 115,177 during the same period in 2023.
Since the coalition of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to power in October 2022, NGO ships operating in the Mediterranean are theoretically only allowed to carry out one rescue at a time and must leave. “immediately” in a port immediately after, a policy that prevents them from making several in a row.
NGOs believe this violates maritime law, which obliges all ships to come to the aid of a ship in distress. Rome accuses rescue ships of being a “attraction factor”although in reality the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy are detained by the coast guard.
Italian authorities decided on Wednesday to immobilize the ship of the humanitarian NGO Sea-Watch for twenty days, arguing that it did not wait for the agreement of the Libyan authorities to rescue the migrants. Sea surveillance 5 It arrived in the Italian port of Civitavecchia on Wednesday with 289 rescued people on board, but will now have to wait 20 days before it can set off on a mission in the Mediterranean.
