Authorities have confirmed that at least 43 bodies – including a child – have been found after a migrant boat crashed in rough seas off the southern Italian coast.
Among those who died in the accident were a few months-old babies, the Italian news agency AGI reported.
“Currently, 80 people have been found alive – some have managed to reach the coast after the shipwrecks – and 43 bodies have been found along the coast,” the Coast Guard said just before noon, near dawn in the Ionian Sea, according to port authorities the coastal town of Crotone in Calabria at the foot of the Italian peninsula seemingly all alone on land.
Pieces of driftwood lay on the beach at Steccato di Cutro, near where the boat would have left.
Firefighters, including divers, recovered 28 bodies, three of which were washed away from the wreck by the strong current.
“It’s an enormous tragedy,”,” said the mayor of Crotone Vincenzo Voce in an interview on state television RAI. “Out of solidarity, the city will find a place in the cemetery” for the dead, Voce said.
Details on the migrants’ nationality were not released immediately.
It is not immediately clear where the boat departed from, but migrant ships arriving in Calabria usually depart from the Turkish or Egyptian coasts. Many of these vessels, including sailboats, often reach remote stretches of Italy’s long southern coast without the assistance of the Coast Guard or humanitarian rescue vessels.
(With inputs from agencies)
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