At least twenty migrants missing after shipwreck in the Mediterranean near the island of Lampedusa

The tragedy occurred on the 1st^is September. At least twenty migrants are missing following the sinking of a boat in the Mediterranean, near the Italian island of Lampedusa, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Italian coastguard announced on Wednesday, September 4.

“Twenty people are missing in the Mediterranean after a shipwreck on 1^is September, according to survivors »wrote on X Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR representative in Italy. “The seven survivors, welcomed by our team in Lampedusa, are in critical condition. Many of them are believed to have lost loved ones.” in the disaster, she said. The Italian coastguard, for its part, reported 21 missing people. They said they had rescued in the morning, less than 20 kilometres from Lampedusa, “a boat adrift, half submerged in water and about to sink, with seven migrants on board, all men of Syrian nationality”.

Images released by the coastguard show the men in a tiny boat, completely filled with water, sliding on inflatable mattresses towards the rescue vessel.

“The rescued migrants said they left on the 1st^is September from Libya with 28 people on board, including three minors, of whom 21 are said to have fallen into the water due to bad weather conditions”they said in a statement. They are continuing the search for the missing persons, including with the help of an aircraft.

More than 3,000 people disappeared in the Mediterranean last year

In 2023, more than 3,000 migrants were reported missing after attempting to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). According to figures from the Italian Interior Ministry, arrivals by sea have dropped significantly since the beginning of the year: 43,061 people arrived in Italy between 1^is 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 go “without delay” in a port immediately afterwards – a policy that prevents them from making several in a row.

NGOs say this violates maritime law, which requires all ships to come to the aid of a boat in distress. Rome accuses the rescue ships of being a “pull factor”even though in reality the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy are picked up by the coastguard.

The Italian authorities decided on Wednesday to immobilize for twenty days the ship of the humanitarian NGO Sea-Watch, on the grounds that it did not wait for the agreement of the Libyan authorities to rescue migrants. The ship Sea-Watch 5 arrived in the Italian port of Civitavecchia on Wednesday with 289 rescued people on board, but will now have to wait twenty days before being able to set off on another mission in the Mediterranean.