64 missing, at least 11 dead, after 2 shipwrecks off Italian coast

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Sixty-four people were missing at sea after a shipwreck off the Italian southern coast on Monday, while 11 were rescued and taken ashore to a Calabrian town, United Nations’ agencies said in a statement.

In a separate shipwreck, rescue workers found 10 bodies of suspected migrants trapped below the deck of a wooden boat off Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island, the German aid group Resqship wrote on Monday on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

In the first shipwreck, which took place about 125 miles off Calabria, a boat that had set off from Turkey eight days earlier caught fire and overturned, the UN agencies said, citing survivors.

AT LEAST 49 DEAD AND 140 MISSING AFTER MIGRANT BOAT SINKS NEAR YEMEN, UN AGENCY SAYS

The search-and-rescue operation started following a Mayday call by a French boat, the Italian Coast Guard said in a statement. The boat was sailing in a border area where Greece and Italy carry out search-and-rescue operations. Survivors and people still missing at sea came from Iran, Syria and Iraq, the U.N. agencies said.

Some of the 11 migrants saved from the sea after their sailboat sank in the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and Greece early Monday, June 17, 2024, are assisted in Roccella Ionica, southern Italy where they were brought by the Italian Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Valeria Ferraro)

The Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center immediately diverted two merchant vessels sailing nearby to the scene of the rescue. Assets from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex also helped.

The survivors were brought to the Calabrian port of Roccella Jonica, where they were disembarked and entrusted to the care of medical personnel. One of the migrants died soon after, the coast guard said.

In the second shipwreck, the crew aboard Resqship’s boat, the Nadir, found 61 people on the wooden boat, which was full of water.

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“Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious,” it added. “The 10 dead were in the flooded lower deck of the boat.”