Migrant shipwreck leaves 21 missing off Lampedusa
The boat “kept capsizing, leaving people clinging to the sides while their families drowned around them.,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) national coordinator in Italy, said in a statement posted online.
The survivors, all Syrian men, told rescuers they had boarded the boat from Libya and that 21 of the 28 people on board, including three children, fell overboard in bad weather.
According to the Italian office of the UN refugee agency (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).
Deadly Mediterranean crossing
According to recent reports, the Central Mediterranean is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. Missing Migrants Project from the United Nations migration agency IOM.
IOM found that more than 2,500 migrants died or went missing while attempting the crossing last year alone, and more than 1,000 more have died or gone missing this year.
In general, one of three According to IOM analysis of the number of migrants who died while fleeing conflict from 2014-2023.
Last year was deadliest on recordwith 8,541 migrant victims. Nearly 60 percent of these deaths were related to drowning.
English Channel tragedy
Six children and a pregnant mother were among 12 people who drowned in the English channel on Tuesday is another “unacceptable tragedy,” UNICEF’s European office said on Wednesday.
“We cannot stand by and watch Europe’s other shores become a burial ground for children,” they stressed, adding that one in five illegal immigrants entering the UK are children.
“There needs to be more safe and regular routes, as well as solutions that address the root causes of the problems that drive people to leave their homes,” Amy Pope, director of the IOM, told X in response to the needless deaths.
