200 migrants feared drowned off Libya

It is feared up to 200 migrants may have drowned after an overcrowded boat they were on capsized in the Mediterranean.

According to the UNHCR, the boat, crammed on one side with migrants desperate to draw the attention of a nearby Irish naval vessel, capsized after having transmitted numerous distress signals prior to the incident. Those who were on top of the vessel jumped into the water and were rescued, while the migrants who were travelling in the boat’s hull were trapped inside.

Search teams have recovered 25 bodies, Italian officials say.

Nearly 400 people have been rescued so far from the vessel which capsized and sank while attempting to cross the Mediterranean with an estimated 600 refugees and migrants on board, the UN refugee agency said earlier on Thursday.

According to IOM, these figures confirm that “the route across the Mediterranean is the most deadly for migrants”, a development which has intensified over the last six months.

The five were put under formal arrest in Palermo after being questioned on Thursday. Filippo Marini of the Italian Coast Guard, which is coordinating the rescue operation, told CNN. Shortly after the Fiorillo set sail to bring the survivors to Italian shores, the fishing boat sank, the coast guard said. “The creation of safe and legal ways for people to seek asylum or migrate to Europe“.

Another boat Dignity1, run by the charity MSF (Medecins sans Frontiers or Doctors Without Borders), was the second vessel on site and also helped rescue people from the water.

The exact number of those aboard might never be known, but authorities hoped to have a better idea after survivors are interviewed.

“So we told people to swim to the life rafts and this is what they did, allowing us in the meantime to hand out life jackets to almost every person in the water so that they could remain afloat”.

“European governments must do more to provide safe and legal ways for people in need of protection to enter the European Union, rather than risking their lives at sea in their thousands”, the Amnesty worldwide human rights group said in a statement. A young girl, her head jerking back, appeared to collapse as she was scooped into the arms of one of the land-based personnel helping the survivors disembark.

On Tuesday, the worldwide Organization for Migration said almost 2,000 migrants are believed to have died at sea since the start of this year, but the exact toll isn’t known.