ROME—Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean on Sunday after the boat in which they were traveling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy’s coastguard said.
The tragedy comes just weeks after a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died.
Alarm Phone, a charity that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, assumed the 30 people were dead.
Rescue operations were ongoing late on Sunday, supported by merchant ships and aerial support by the EU’s border agency Frontex, while two further merchant vessels were en route to the area, the coastguard said in a statement.
After an initial rescue attempt by a merchant ship failed due to bad weather, Libyan authorities asked Rome for help given that they lacked the means to carry out the rescue, the Italian coastguard said in the statement.
Rome then requested merchant ships in the area to join the rescue efforts. However, the migrant vessel capsized during an attempt to transfer the people on to the “FROLAND” merchant ship on Sunday morning, it said.
Arrivals have surged, with 17,600 people reaching Italy this year as of March 10, compared to 6,000 in the same period of 2022, official figures show.
On Saturday the coastguard said that more than 1,300 migrants had been rescued in three operations off the southern tip of Italy, with a further 200 saved off Sicily.
