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ROME: At least 26 migrants died Wednesday when two boats sank off the coast of Italy’s Lampedusa island, with around 10 others still missing, the coast guard and UN officials said.
Around 60 people were rescued after the sinkings in the central Mediterranean, a stretch between North Africa and Italy described by the UN as the world’s most dangerous sea crossing for migrants.
The two boats had left Tripoli, Libya, earlier in the day, according to the Italian coast guard.
It said one of the boats started taking on water, causing people to climb onto the other boat, which itself then capsized.
“Currently 60 people have been rescued and disembarked in Lampedusa, and (there are) at least 26 victims. The toll is still provisional and being updated,” the coast guard said in a statement.
Italy’s Red Cross, which manages Lampedusa’s migrant reception center, said the survivors included 56 men and four women, updating a previous toll of 22 dead.
Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the UN’s migration agency (IOM), said around 95 people had been on the two boats.
Given how many had been saved, “approximately 35 victims are feared dead or missing,” he wrote on social media.
Among the first to be transported to the Lampedusa mortuary were the bodies of a newborn, three children, two men and two women, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.
Lampedusa, just 90 miles (145 kilometers) off the coast of Tunisia, is often the first port of call for people trying to reach Europe in leaky or overcrowded boats.
In recent years, Italian authorities have sought to intercept the boats at sea before they arrive.
It was a helicopter from Italy’s financial police that spotted a capsized boat and several bodies in the water on Wednesday, about 14 nautical miles off Lampedusa, the coast guard said.
Five vessels were searching for survivors, including one from the EU’s Frontex border agency, alongside a helicopter and two aircraft, it said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered her “deepest condolences” to the victims and vowed to step up efforts to tackle migrant traffickers.
Her hard-right government took office in October 2022 vowing to cut the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
As part of this, it has cut deals with North African countries from which migrants embark, providing funding and training in exchange for help in stemming departures.
“When a tragedy like today’s occurs, with the deaths of dozens of people in the waters of the Mediterranean, a strong sense of dismay and compassion arises in all of us,” Meloni said in a statement.
“And we find ourselves contemplating the inhumane cynicism with which human traffickers organize these sinister journeys.”
She said stepping up rescue efforts was not enough to tackle the scourge of trafficking, saying this could be done only by “preventing irregular departures and managing migration flows.”
The UNHCR refugee agency said Wednesday that there had been 675 migrant deaths on the central Mediterranean route so far this year.
As of Wednesday, 38,263 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores this year, according to the interior ministry.
A similar number was recorded at the same time last year, but the figure is significantly less than in 2023, when almost 100,000 people had arrived by mid-August.

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that he warned US President Donald Trump ahead of his talks with Vladimir Putin this week that the Russian leader is “bluffing” about his desire to end the war.
Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday, where Kyiv and its allies are worried the two leaders may try to dictate the terms of peace in the 3-1/2-year war.
“I told the US president and all our European colleagues that Putin is bluffing,” he said at a joint briefing in Berlin with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“He is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all parts of the Ukrainian front. Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine.”
Zelensky’s comments, made after a virtual call with Trump and European leaders, come as Russian forces step up pressure on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, aiming to force Kyiv to give up land.
Zelensky, who said he hoped the main topic of the talks in Alaska would be an immediate ceasefire, added that any discussions regarding territory should be covered during a three-leader meeting.
“Regarding our principles and territorial integrity, in the end this is all decided at the level of leaders,” he said. “Without Ukraine, it is impossible to decide this. And, by the way, everyone also supports this.”
Zelensky said Trump told him he would debrief him about his talks with Putin.