The coastguard said the warmer weather and calmer seas had led to a
surge in the number of people trying to cross from Libya, where people
smugglers operate with relative impunity.
Coffins
containing dead migrants removed from Italian navy ships "Bettica" are
seen in the Sicilian harbour of Porto Empedocle, Italy, May 26, 2016.
At least 45 migrants died in a
shipwreck and more than 2,000 were rescued from boats in the
Mediterranean on Friday, the coastguard said, as the number of
immigrants coming to Europe via Italy soared again.
Around
14,000 people were taken off often flimsy vessels over the whole week,
the United Nations and the coastguard said, and hundreds may have
drowned, survivors and boat crews added, though there are no official
estimates of total casualties.
Italian Navy ship
Vega plucked about 135 people off a "half-submerged" large rubber boat
in one of 17 operations coordinated by the coastguard on Friday. The
Vega recovered 45 bodies and is still searching for the missing, the
navy said, marking the third straight day of reports of migrant deaths
at sea.
It is not known how many people had been on board the boat before it began to deflate.
The
coastguard said the warmer weather and calmer seas had led to a surge
in the number of people trying to cross from Libya, where people
smugglers operate with relative impunity.
The numbers managing to reach Italy were comparable to the same period last year and the year before.
The
migrants, many of whom do not know how to swim and do not have life
jackets, pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to make the crossing.
They
are piled onto flimsy rubber boats or old fishing vessels, and as
dramatic images from the crew of the Italian Navy ship Bettica showed on
Wednesday, they can be tossed into the water in a matter of seconds.
The
images show the moment a blue fishing boat capsized, sending hundreds
of migrants tumbling into the sea. About 240 women and children had
already been rescued, but an unknown number were trapped in the hull.
Only five bodies were recovered and 562 were saved.
Testimony
from survivors suggests there were still many people below deck who
were not able to escape, according to the U.N. refugee agency, while the
Bettica captain estimated that "some 100" may have been lost.
On
Thursday, when 4,000 were rescued in 22 separate operations, survivors
from another overturned fishing boat say some 200 may have drowned, a
sharp rise from the 20-30 originally estimated, according to an Italian
Interior Ministry source. Some 15 bodies were recovered, he said.
"It's
obvious that no matter the great effort made by rescuers, when the
numbers are as high as we're seeing this week, it's very risky," said Federico Fossi, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Rome.
"But
in terms of numbers it's the third year that this is 'normal'," Fossi
said. "It's the beginning of the high season and we're still at slightly
fewer arrivals as the same period last year."
In
2014 and 2015, more than 320,000 boat migrants arrived on Italian
shores, and an estimated 7,000 died in the Mediterranean as they sought
to reach Europe, according to the International Organization for
Migration.
On Friday the IOM said it estimates total Mediterranean deaths at sea to be 1,475 this year.
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