Dozens of people have died and officials fear hundreds more have been lost at sea after a boat carrying 600 migrants capsized off the north Egyptian coast, as world leaders gathered at a summit in New York to discuss the refugee crisis.



Rescuers have brought more than 150 people ashore and recovered 43 bodies, including several women and a child, and hundreds more are missing, according to local officials and news agencies said.

“We are deeply concerned at reports that hundreds of people may be missing at sea,” said Matthew Saltmarsh, spokesman for the United Nation’s refugee agency, UNHCR.

“Events like this highlight the importance of rescue operations as part of the response to the movement of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean and the need for real, safer alternatives for people needing international protection.”

Like most boats used for human trafficking, the ship that sank not far off the Egyptian coast appeared to have been dangerously overloaded, security officials said.

Smugglers operating from Egypt often use old fishing boats for the long journey to Italy. Manypassengers are crammed below deck, with little chance of surviving if the boat sinks.

“Initial information indicates that the boat sank because it was carrying more people than its limit. The boat tilted and the migrants fell into the water,” a senior security official in northern Beheira province told Reuters.

People gather along the Mediterranean during the search for victims in Al-Beheira, Egypt on Wednesday. Photograph: Reuters

He said the dead were mostly Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali nationals. Relatives of missing Egyptians gathered at a coastguard post to wait for news within hours of the tragedy.

“I am not going to leave until I see Mohamed,” Ratiba Ghonim told Reuters, as she mourned her 16-year-old brother. “It is his destiny to leave yesterday and come back dead today. They still haven’t pulled his body out of the water.”

The tragedy is part of a growing human trafficking problem out of the country. Neighbouring Libya is still the starting point for most efforts to reach Italy by boat from north Africa but, after years of lawless chaos in the region, a rising number of people are setting out from Egypt instead.

In the first seven months of this year, Italian data showed that the number of migrants who reached the country by boat from Egypt was nearly 70% higher than the same period of last year. Arrivals from Libya fell slightly.

A safer embarkation point has not made the journey itself any less perilous. Thousands of people have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean, with nearly 3,000 dead or missing in the first eight months of this year, according to UN data.

The deadliest month was May, when hundreds of people died in three separate incidents that overwhelmed rescuers. In June, more than 300 migrants who had set off from Egypt died when their boat capsized near Crete.

Rescue services are patchy, a mix of privately funded operations and an EU anti-smuggling mission that helps out with rescues when needed, but is not officially assigned to search and rescue operations.

Charities have warned that the Mediterranean is becoming a “mass grave” as Europe looks away from tragedy.

Crossings from Turkey to Greece fell dramatically after an EU-Turkey pact earlier this year, that aimed to deter prospective migrants by promising the deportation of most people arriving through that route.

Several thousand people are still risking that voyage each month and experts say only the prospect of safe and effective resettlement schemes will stem the flow of people risking their lives.

At the summit in New York this week, the US president, Barack Obama, announced that a coalition of more than 30 countries had agreed to concrete measures to tackle the refugee crisis.

They include a commitment to double resettlement places for refugees, increase humanitarian aid for refugees by $4.5bn, provide education to 1 million more refugee children and potentially improve access to legal work for another million adults.







