The central Mediterranean is one of the world’s most perilous migrant passageways. Over the past year, it has seen a reduction in the number of large-scale disasters — in part because smugglers have been using smaller boats.

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Meanwhile, European governments, particularly Italy, have tightened their borders and tried to deter African migrants from making the journey.

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But the fatality rate for those attempting the trip has increased. Most humanitarian rescue boats have ceased operations in the region, as countries across southern Europe have impounded their vessels or accused the groups of criminal activity.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the high numbers of people dying on Europe’s doorstep,” Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement.

The U.N. refugee agency, noting that more than 2,200 people died last year trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean, said it is “concerned that actions by states are increasingly deterring NGOs from conducting search and rescue operations.”

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Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right interior minister, has said his policies — which include closing off port access to humanitarian ships that rescue migrants — have helped to reduce the overall death toll in the Mediterranean by deterring migrants from attempting the journey.

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The move has been domestically popular in Italy, and it reflects a gradual hardening of attitudes in Europe’s front-line countries about migrants — and about the dangers they expose themselves to.

After more than 300 migrants died in a 2013 shipwreck, Italy launched a year-long sea operation to avoid similar tragedies. It now cedes much of the search-and-rescue in the Mediterranean to Libya’s coast guard. That agency intercepts migrants bound for Europe and returns them to North Africa.

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In a statement about the latest deadly incident, the Italian navy said that by the time a military plane had spotted the sinking dinghy, there were 20 people aboard. The plane launched two inflatable rafts and called for support. A helicopter rescued one person from the water and two people from one of Italian rescue rafts.

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The three survivors were taken by helicopter to the island of Lampedusa.

Federico Soda, the Rome-based director of the IOM’s Mediterranean coordination office, said it was unclear whether smugglers are changing tactics and returning to using the kind of larger rubber dinghies more common before 2017. But either way, he said, the quality of the boats is low.

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