Report: Mediterranean migrant deaths 30 times higher than 2014

Jane Onyanga-Omara | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Deadly week for migrants in the Mediterranean Rescue crews search for survivors, bodies from what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant tragedy ever as hundreds more migrants take to the sea and EU foreign ministers gathered for an emergency meeting to address the crisis. (April 20)

The number of migrants who have died in the Mediterranean this year is more than 30 times higher than the number at the same time in 2014, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.

The IOM said it believes that 1,727 migrants have perished in the Mediterranean so far this year.

United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman Adrian Edwards on Tuesday said there were 850 people aboard a wooden fishing boat that capsized off Libya's coast late Saturday, according to survivors.

Twenty eight people survived the tragedy, and only 24 bodies have been recovered.

"From available information and the various accounts we've had UNHCR now believes the number of fatalities to have been over 800 making this the deadliest incident in the Mediterranean that we recorded," Edwards said.

In another incident, 400 people are likely to have drowned when their boat capsized April 13.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman said: "IOM calculates the 2015 death toll now is more than 30 times last year's total at this date."

He said on April 21, 2014, just 56 deaths of migrants were reported on the Mediterranean.

Following Saturday's disaster, the Tunisian captain of the boat, Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, and a Syrian crew member were arrested, prosecutors in Sicily said Tuesday. They are accused of favoring illegal immigration and Malek was also accused of reckless homicide and causing a shipwreck, the Associated Press reported.

The news agency added that Catania, Sicily, prosecutors said the boat capsized due to two factors — Malek by mistake allegedly rammed the boat into a Portuguese-flagged cargo ship that came to its rescue, and the migrants moved, making the boat tip over.

Prosecutors said several hundred people were locked on the lower level of the boat, hundreds more were inside a second level and hundreds more were on deck, the AP said.

The IOM said that 27 survivors arrived in Catania just before midnight Monday, while another survivor was flown to Sicily by helicopter. The survivors come from Mali, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and Tunisia, the organization said.

The European Union on Monday agreed to expand its Mediterranean Sea rescue effort from waters close to European shores to closer to Libya, where many of the migrants' voyages begin.

EU Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dmitris Avramopoulous said the EU will also provide more funds for migrant interdiction, seek to catch and destroy smugglers' ships and devote more resources to process, return and resettle migrants.

Avramopoulous' plan puts off a decision on dealing with political chaos in Libya, which has been in turmoil since the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.