The Italian coast guard continued its search on Monday at sea and on the coast near Crotone in Calabria, after the shipwreck the day before of a boat with migrants that left dozens dead.
The discovery of the bodies of new victims washed ashore by the tide increased the death toll to 62, the coast guard told AFP on Monday. This number could go up. The previous balance was 59 deaths.
The NGOs took care of children who saw their relatives drown when the overloaded boat hit some rocks a few meters from the coast in a storm on Sunday at dawn.
“A 12-year-old Afghan boy lost his entire family, nine people in total: his four brothers and sisters, his parents and other members of his family,” Sergio di Dato, head of the team of psychologists sent to the scene, told the press. by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to help survivors.
Remains of the boat were found scattered on the beach, according to images from the Italian police and AFP.
Firefighters from the neighboring city of Cutro mobilized a boat on Monday to launch new searches, aided by helicopters that flew over the area.
In Le Castella, where a 15th-century fortress dominates the coast, an AFP journalist attended coastguard operations that recovered the body of a woman, in her early twenties.
The Italian NGO Save the Children indicated on Twitter that it took care of survivors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, including dozens of minors traveling with their families. “There are many missing children,” she added.
“The Massacre of Innocents”
According to this NGO, the survivors recounted that “during the night, near the coast, they heard a loud noise and then they all fell into the water.” “Some said they saw their relatives fall into the water and disappear, or die.”
The boat had left Izmir in Turkey last week, and three of the people responsible for smuggling illegal migrants have already been arrested, while police are looking for a fourth suspect, Italian media reported Monday.
This new tragedy was on the front page of the Italian press. “The massacre of innocents”, headlined the newspaper La Stampa, with a photo of the remains of the boat. “The boat is destroyed 100 meters from the shore: the massacre of migrants,” wrote the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on the front page.
The head of government of Italy, the far-right Giorgia Meloni, expressed her “deep pain” and estimated that it was “criminal to send a boat of just 20 meters into the sea with 200 people on board and with a bad weather forecast.”
Italy, a country to which hundreds of thousands of migrants have arrived in recent years, reproaches its partners in the European Union for a lack of solidarity in spreading the burden of this situation, even if a large number of these people do not stay on the peninsula .
Italy’s geographical situation makes it a destination of choice for asylum seekers moving from North Africa to Europe.
According to the Interior Ministry, some 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, up from 5,200 in the same period last year and 4,200 in 2021.