GENEVA: 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 UN 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.