By Gianni Daniele and Alvise Armellini
STECCATO DI CUTRO, Italy (Reuters) – At least 59 people were killed, including 12 children, when a wooden sailboat carrying migrants to Europe crashed into rocks near Italy’s southern coast on Sunday morning, authorities said.
The ship, which left Turkey and was carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries, sank in rough seas near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on Calabria’s east coast.
The incident reignited a debate over migration in Europe and Italy, where the recently elected right-wing government’s harsh new laws for migrant-rescue charities have drawn criticism from the United Nations and others.
As of Sunday afternoon, the provisional death toll was 59, but it was expected to rise, Interior Minister Wanda Ferro (NYSE:) told reporters.
Manuela Curra, a provincial government official, earlier told Reuters that 81 people had survived the sinking. Twenty of them were taken to hospital, including one person in intensive care.
As emergency services searched the sea and shoreline in stormy weather, Curra said survivors said there were between 140 and 150 on board, suggesting some people were missing.
The ship left Turkey’s western port of Izmir about four days ago and was discovered about 74 kilometers (46 miles) offshore on Saturday night by a plane operated by the European Union border agency Frontex, Italian police said. .
Patrol boats were mobilized to intercept it, but bad weather forced them to return to port, police said, adding that authorities mobilized search units along the coast.
A baby just a few months old was among the migrants found for the first time on the beach, according to the ANSA news agency.
ER doctor Laura De Paoli described finding another dead child, aged seven.
“When we reached the point of the shipwreck, we saw corpses floating everywhere and we rescued two men who were carrying a child. Unfortunately, the child was dead,” he told ANSA.
With his voice cracking with emotion, the mayor of Cutro, Antonio Ceraso, told the news channel SkyTG24 that he had seen “a show that you would never want to see in your life… a horrible show… that you have for the whole life”. life”.
The remains of the wooden schooner, a Turkish sailing ship, were scattered over a large stretch of coastline.
One survivor was arrested on charges of migrant smuggling, Guardia di Finanza customs police said.
SECURITY ‘FALSE PERSPECTIVE’
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed deep regret over the deaths, blaming human traffickers who profit while offering migrants “the false prospect of safe travel.”
“The Government is committed to preventing departures, and with them the development of these tragedies, and will continue to do so, first of all, asking for maximum collaboration from the countries of origin and origin,” he said.
Meloni’s administration has said migrant rescue charities are encouraging migrants to make the dangerous sea journey to Italy and sometimes working in partnership with smugglers.
The charities strongly deny both accusations.
“Stopping, blocking and hindering the work of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) will only have one effect – the death of vulnerable people left without help,” Spanish migrant rescue charity Open Arms tweeted in reaction to Sunday’s shipwreck. .
However, the coast off Calabria is not routinely patrolled by NGO boats, which operate in the waters off southern Sicily. That suggests the shipwrecked migrants would have been unlikely to be intercepted regardless of Meloni’s crackdown.
The head of the Italian Catholic Church, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, called for the resumption of an EU search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean, as part of a “structural, shared and humanitarian response” to the migration crisis.
Along the same lines, a spokesperson for the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) appealed on Twitter to strengthen rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
Flavio Di Giacomo also called for the opening of “more regular migration channels” to Europe and for action to address what he said are the multiple causes that push people to try sea crossings.
Earlier on Sunday, Pope Francis, the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina and a longtime advocate for immigrant rights, said he was praying for the victims of the shipwreck.
Italy is one of the main arrival points for migrants trying to enter Europe by sea, with many seeking to travel to wealthier northern European nations. But to do so, they must brave the world’s most dangerous migration route.
The United Nations Missing Migrants Project has recorded more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014. More than 220 have died or disappeared this year, he estimates.
(Reporting from Rome by Alvise Armellini, Giselda Vagnoni, Angelo Amante, Crispian BalmerWriting by Alvise ArmelliniEditing by Tomasz Janowski, Crispian Balmer, Barbara Lewis and Frances Kerry)