At least four people have been found dead and 25 people are still reported to be missing following a shipwreck off the coast of Italy's southern island of Lampedusa, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Global Spokesperson Charlie Yaxley said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th October, 2019) At least four people have been found dead and 25 people are still reported to be missing following a shipwreck off the coast of Italy's southern island of Lampedusa, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Global Spokesperson Charlie Yaxley said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, Yaxley said that reports had come in of a shipwreck off Lampedusa and that two bodies had been recovered and as many as 30 remained unaccounted for.
"Tragic reports coming in of a shipwreck off coast of Lampedusa... Latest from coast guard reports 4 dead bodies recovered, 25 still missing. Praying more are found alive. Urgent action needed on this," Yaxley tweeted.
Yaxley said that so far as many as 22 people had been rescued and called for an increased search and rescue capacity.
On October 1, the International Organization for Migration said that nearly 1,000 migrants had perished in the Mediterranean Sea this year, trying to reach Europe from Africa and the middle East by embarking on the dangerous journey to cross its waters.
Since 2015, Europe has been experiencing its worst migration crisis in recent history, struggling to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing hostilities in Middle Eastern and North African countries. However, over recent years the flow of migrants has been steadily going down due to various factors, including the winding down of the war in Syria and a number of European countries embracing a stricter border security and immigration policies.
