ROME: Italy’s coast guard said Sunday it had rescued 91 people from a migrant boat adrift off the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, but two males were found dead.
The boat was drifting some 16 nautical miles from the Italian island when it was located by an EU border agency plane, the coast guard said in a statement, adding it had dispatched two patrol boats.
“During the inspection of the below-deck areas, additional migrants in serious health conditions and two bodies, both male, were discovered,” it said.
The survivors — 85 men, one woman and five presumed minors — were disembarked and some taken to hospital by helicopter.
Italian news agency Ansa said that 14 of the migrants were in serious condition, with three requiring intubation.
Ansa said the two migrants died after inhaling petrol while below deck, with 14 others ill for the same reason.
The migrants came from Pakistan, Eritrea and Somalia, it said.
The waters off Lampedusa were the site of another migrant disaster on Friday, when about 20 people went missing after a shipwreck.
The coast guard said Friday that 11 people had been rescued, and one body was recovered, but the rest of the approximately 30 people from that boat were unaccounted for.
Italian coast guard says rescues dozens of migrants, two dead
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Italian coast guard says rescues dozens of migrants, two dead
- Boat was drifting some 16 nautical miles from Lampedusa island
- 85 men, one woman and five presumed minors have survived
Brazil’s Lula accuses Trump of seeking to forge ‘new UN’
- Lula defended multilateralism against what he called “the law of the jungle” in global affairs
- Key US allies including France and Britain have also expressed doubts
BRASILIA: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Donald Trump on Friday of trying to create “a new UN” with his proposed “Board of Peace.”
The veteran leftist joins other world leaders who have avoided signing up for Trump’s new global conflict resolution organization, where a permanent seat costs $1 billion and the chairman is Trump himself.
“Instead of fixing” the United Nations, “what’s happening? President Trump is proposing to create a new UN where only he is the owner,” Lula said.
Trump unveiled his “Board of Peace” at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos Thursday, joined on stage by leaders and officials from 19 countries to sign its founding charter.
Lula defended multilateralism against what he called “the law of the jungle” in global affairs.
His remarks come a day after he spoke by phone with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who urged his counterpart to safeguard the “central role” of the United Nations in international affairs.
In his remarks on Friday, Lula said “the UN charter is being torn.”
Although originally intended to oversee Gaza’s rebuilding, the board’s charter does not seem to limit its role to the Palestinian territory and appears to want to rival the United Nations.
Key US allies including France and Britain have also expressed doubts.
London balked at the inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces are fighting in Ukraine after invading in 2022.
France said the charter as it currently stood was “incompatible” with its international commitments, especially its UN membership.
