A group of almost 60 migrants, including children, have drowned off the Southern Italian coast after their boat sank in rough seas. Brett_McLeod 9News MORE:
A wooden boat crowded with migrants smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart before dawn on Sunday off the Italian coast, authorities said.Officials feared the death toll could top 100 since some survivors indicated the boat had as many as 200 passengers when it set out from Turkey, United Nations refugee and migration agencies said.The wreckage from a capsized boat washes ashore at a beach near Cutro, southern Italy, Sunday, February 26, 2023.
Wreckage from a capsized boat at a beach near Cutro, southern Italy, Sunday, February 26, 2023. Rescue officials say an undetermined number of migrants have died and dozens have been rescued after their boat broke apart off southern Italy. Earlier, in an indication of the difficulty in establishing how many passengers had set out on the voyage, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said some 200 people had been crowded into a 20-metre boat.
In 2022, some 105,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores, some 38,000 more than in 2021, according to Interior Ministry figures. She vowed to crack down on departures arranged by human smugglers and to press fellow European Union leaders to help."Condemning only the smugglers, as the centre-right is doing now, is hypocrisy,″ said Laura Ferrara, a European Parliament lawmaker from the populist 5-Star Movement.
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