The bodies of eight migrants were recovered by Italy’s coast guard during an overnight operation that also rescued 42 survivors in the central Mediterranean off the island of Lampedusa, authorities said Friday.
Two other people, a newborn and a man, fell into the sea during the voyage and are presumed dead, the coast guard said in a statement, citing survivors’ accounts.
Survivors reported that the infant died from exposure and that the distraught mother threw the newborn into the sea, according to the ANSA news agency. The man then jumped in trying to retrieve the body, disappearing into the waves.
Video of the rescue shows survivors piled into a small open fishing boat, which was adrift with a non-functioning engine. Rescuers warned them to sit down and not move before releasing a rope to get them to safety.
Everyone on board was drenched, cold and dehydrated, and those who died were believed to have died of hypothermia, ANSA reported.
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The survivors said they had left the Tunisian port of Sfax before dawn on Saturday, ANSA said. They were among about 200 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries, who arrived in Lampedusa on three boats overnight.
Lampedusa Mayor Filippo Mannino appealed to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, asking that “the government does not leave us alone to handle this huge tragedy. Help us. We can no longer drive.”
The Italian coast guard recovered the bodies of eight migrants during an operation on an island off the Italian coast. The country’s coast guard also rescued 42 survivors.
(ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images)
Charity ships operating in the deadly central Mediterranean have complained that a new Italian decree forcing them to dock after every rescue endangers the lives of migrants leaving North Africa by exposing the search area. and rescue. That is compounded by a new practice of assigning ports in northern Italy, which require days of sailing to reach.
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The Council of Europe this week urged the Italian government to consider withdrawing the decree, saying it could hamper search-and-rescue operations by non-governmental agencies, “depriving people in danger of vital assistance from NGOs on the migration route.” deadliest in the Mediterranean”.
In a letter to Italy’s interior minister, Council of Europe commissioner for human rights Dunja Mijatović also repeated a call on Italy to suspend its cooperation with the Libyan government on interceptions at sea, due to the likelihood that migrants returned to Libya face torture. rape, slavery, exploitation and detention.
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The latest call comes after Italy agreed over the weekend to provide Libya with five new coast guard boats to help stop the movement of migrants to Europe. The deal was announced during a visit by Meloni that secured an $8 billion gas deal.
The central Mediterranean Sea is a dangerous crossing that has claimed 20,285 lives since the UN migration office began tracking figures in 2014, compared with 5,000 in the eastern and western Mediterranean combined. Many of the victims are missing at sea and presumed dead, according to survivor accounts.
