By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Hundreds of people are feared dead or missing after attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, with reports of multiple shipwrecks in the last ten days following bad weather, the U.N. migration agency said on Monday.
“The final toll may be significantly higher, a stark reminder that this route remains the deadliest migration corridor in the world,” the IOM stated.
Three people - including twin girls about one year old - were confirmed dead in Lampedusa, Italy, after a search-and-rescue operation for a boat that left Sfax, Tunisia, the International Organization for Migration said in a statement. They died of hypothermia, according to their Guinean mother, a survivor. A man also died from the same cause, the IOM added.
Survivors from the same boat said another vessel departed simultaneously but never arrived and its fate remains unknown, the IOM said.
Over the past 10 days - amid a violent Mediterranean storm triggered by Cyclone Harry - several boats are believed to have gone missing, leaving hundreds unaccounted for, according to the IOM. Search efforts have been hampered by poor weather.
The agency is verifying a survivor’s report from another boat, rescued by a commercial vessel near Malta, of a shipwreck where at least 50 people could be missing or dead. Separately, 51 people are feared dead after a wreck off Tobruk, Libya, the IOM said.
“Smuggling migrants on unseaworthy and overcrowded boats is a criminal act,” the IOM said.
“Arranging departures while a severe storm was hitting the region makes this conduct even more reprehensible, as people were knowingly sent to sea under conditions amounting to a near-certain risk of death,” it added.
In 2025, at least 1,340 people died in the Central Mediterranean, according to the agency’s figures.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
