This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

As many as 400 migrants fleeing Libya are feared to have drowned after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, survivors told an aid organisation.

Italy’s coastguard had helped to rescue 144 people on Monday, but said it believed there were many more who had drowned given the size of the vessel and that nine bodies had been found.

As an air and sea search continued, survivors were brought into the port at Reggio Calabria, on Italy’s southern tip, where they told Save the Children aid workers there may have been 400 others who drowned in the disaster.

The UN refugee agency said the death toll was likely given the size of the ship. “There were 400 victims in this shipwreck, which occurred 24 hours after [their vessel] left the Libyan coast,” Save the Children said in a statement, citing survivors.

“There were several young males, probably minors, among the victims” and also children among those rescued, it added.

Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration in Italy, told Agence France-Presse several of the survivors had told his organisation there were between 500 and 550 people on board when the ship sank.

“We are continuing to investigate in order to understand how the shipwreck happened,” Di Giacomo said.

Initial investigations indicate the boat may have capsized after passengers started moving when they saw the Italian rescue team, AFP reported.

The deaths, if confirmed, would add to the soaring numbers of migrants lost at sea: the IOM estimates that up to 3,072 migrants died in the Mediterranean in 2014, compared with an estimate of 700 in 2013. But even those figures could be low. The IOM estimates that since 2000 more than 22,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to reach Europe.

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The latest tragedy came as Italian authorities said about 8,500 migrants had been rescued at sea between Friday and Monday, reigniting a debate in Italy about whether the country has a duty to house all new arrivals.

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Recent good weather in the Mediterranean has prompted a spike in the number of migrants attempting to reach Italy on board boats, while an increasingly violent and chaotic situation in Libya, a key jumping off point for migrants, has also contributed to the rise.

Earlier on Tuesday, the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must adapt quickly to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores.

“The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm, and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,” the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said in Brussels.

More than 280,000 people entered the European Union illegally last year. Many came from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia and made the perilous sea journey from conflict-torn Libya.

European coastguards have been overwhelmed by the numbers. As the weather has improved, even more people have tried to flee conflict and poverty for better lives in Europe.

Of the 7,000 migrants saved in the Mediterranean since Friday, more than 3,500 are still on board rescue vessels and being taken to Italy and so far, 11 bodies were recovered, EU migration spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Frontex border agency said that people-smugglers trying to recover a wooden boat that had been carrying migrants had fired shots into the air to warn away a coastguard vessel.

The incident took place on Monday 60 nautical miles off the coast of Libya after an Italian tugboat and the coastguard ship came to the rescue of 250 migrants. The coastguard vessel was already carrying 342 migrants from a previous rescue.

It is at least the second incident of this kind, raising concern for the safety of rescue workers and migrants alike.

Late next month, Avramopoulos is expected to unveil a new EU strategy aimed at addressing the migrant boat situation.