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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italian rescuers comb beaches for bodies after deadly shipwreck

Italy's coastguard on Monday searched the sea and beaches for bodies following a shipwreck off Calabria, as authorities tried to identify the dead and the government's migrant policy came under scrutiny.

Italian rescuers comb beaches for bodies after deadly shipwreck
Search and rescue divers from the Italian fire brigade at work after a migrant boat shipwreck on February 27, 2023 near the Le Castella beach in Isola di Capo Rizzuto, south of Crotone. (Photo by Alessandro SERRANO / AFP)

The overloaded wooden boat broke up and sank early Sunday in stormy seas off Italy’s southern coast, with bodies, shoes and debris washing up along a long stretch of shoreline.

The death toll rose on Monday to 62 people, a coast guard official confirmed, and that number looked likely to increase.

READ ALSO: EU chief urges asylum reform after 60 migrants drown off Italian coast

Sergio di Dato, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team offering psychological support to the survivors, said there were cases of children orphaned in the disaster.

“One Afghan 12-year-old boy lost his entire family, all nine of them — four siblings, his parents and other very close relatives,” he told journalists.

At Le Castella, where a 15th-century fortress dominates the shoreline, an AFP journalist witnessed the coastguard recovering the body of a woman who looked to be in her early 20s.

 ‘Many missing minors’

Local officials said the search was ongoing for around 20 people believed to be still missing, though survivors have given differing accounts of how many people were originally on the boat.

Forensic police set about identifying the victims, issuing an email address to which relatives searching for loved ones could send distinguishing details, from eye and hair colour to tattoos or piercings.

Italian coastguard officers standing near a body recovered after a migrant boat shipwreck February 27, 2023 near the Le Castella beach in Isola di Capo Rizzuto, south of Crotone. (Photo by Alessandro SERRANO / AFP)

Save the Children charity said on Twitter it was supporting survivors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, including 10 minors who had been travelling with their families.

“There are many missing minors,” it wrote.

The charity said survivors described how “during the night, near the coast, they heard a loud boom, the boat broke and they all fell into the water.”

The survivors were “in shock… some say they saw relatives fall into the water and disappear, or die”.

The boat was reported to have set sail from Izmir in Turkey last week. Three suspected human traffickers were arrested and police were searching for a fourth, media reports said Monday.

READ ALSO: ‘More will drown’: Italy accused of breaking international law on migrant rescues

David Morabito, a rescue diver in Calabria, told Rai state broadcaster he had recovered the bodies of young twins from the water.

“When you see the little, lifeless bodies of children, those images pierce your heart,” Morabito said.

“So many children dead. A tragedy,” he added.

Italian officials handle coffins containing the bodies of the people who drowned in a shipwreck off Calabria’s coast on Sunday, February 27th. (Photo by Alessandro SERRANO / AFP)

The disaster has further fuelled the debate in Italy over search and rescue measures for saving migrants who run into trouble on the Central Mediterranean route, which is the world’s deadliest.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected in September, has pledged to end migrant arrivals.

She said Sunday the government was “committed to preventing (migrant boat) departures and, with them, this type of tragedy”, while her interior minister Matteo Paintedosi simply said “they must not set sail”.

These reactions were “a sad buck-passing, yet another slap in the face of the victims and survivors of this tragedy”, MSF Italy’s programmes director Marco Bertotto said Monday.

“Sea rescue must not be confused with illegal immigration. We need patrolling on the high seas and coordination,” he told journalists.

Meloni’s government pushed through a controversial law last week that forces migrant aid charities to perform only one life-saving rescue mission at a time before heading directly to ports, which are often far away.

Critics say the measure violates international law and will result in more people drowning.

According to the interior ministry nearly 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, up from 5,200 over the same period last year.

Shipwreck debris on the beach at Steccato di Cutro, south of Crotone. (Photo by Alessandro SERRANO / AFP)

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POLITICS

Italy considering ‘reciprocal plan’ to swap refugees with US

Italy and the United States are drawing up a plan to exchange a small number of refugees in a reported bid to deter illegal migration, an Italian government source said on Friday.

Italy considering 'reciprocal plan' to swap refugees with US

“A reciprocal plan is currently being studied, according to which the US would host refugees present in Libya who want to go to Europe,” a source in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

At the same time, “some European Mediterranean states would host a few dozen South American refugees”, the source said.

The source was responding to a report by CBS News in the United States, which suggested that President Joe Biden’s administration was also in talks with Greece.

CBS said refugees would be selected at immigration offices set up by the United States last year in four Latin American countries.

It said 500 people could be sent both to Italy and Greece, though the source in Meloni’s office said that figure was “completely misleading”.

Rome is looking to accept “about 20 Venezuelan refugees of Italian origin” who would be able to work in Italy, the source said.

The plan would be “very advantageous for Italy and the European states of first arrival”, the source said, without elaborating.

A separate source at Italy’s interior ministry said Rome would “never assent to the relocation of hundreds of people on its national territory in view of its already considerable efforts in receiving migrants”.

In Athens, Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis dismissed the report.

“The CBS report is untrue. There is neither an agreement nor a request from the US to resettle legal immigrants in Greece,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela, as they flee poverty, violence and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.

Meanwhile Italy is among the first ports of call for migrants crossing from North Africa into Europe, recording almost 160,000 irregular arrivals by boat across the central Mediterranean last year.

Meloni’s government has made stopping irregular migration into Italy a priority.

It has sought to speed up asylum processing requests while signing new deals with departure countries.

It has also tried to deter migrants by setting up a new processing centre in Albania and limiting the activities of charities that operate rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nearly 21,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, compared to more than 50,000 in the same period last year, according to government data.

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