Children and women among 43 dead as migrant boat hits rocks near Italy

At least 43 people, including an infant, children and several women, died after a wooden boat carrying around 100 migrants broke apart on rocks off the coast of Calabria, Italian police say.

The first three bodies washed up on the beach near Staccato di Cutro in Southern Italy around 4:40 a.m. local time Sunday.

Around 80 people were saved from the water clinging on to pieces of the boat, Italy’s fire brigade said. The survivors were from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to the fire brigade. It is unclear where the ship was launched from.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blamed human traffickers. “It is criminal to launch a boat just 20 meters long with 200 people on board in adverse weather,” she said in a statement. “It is inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of a ticket under the false perspective of a safe journey.”

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi added that new measures must be instituted to reduce such perilous journeys. “It is essential to continue with every possible initiative to stop departures and discourage crossings in any way which takes advantage of the illusory mirage of a better life,” he said in a statement.

Meloni made stopping migrant boats a priority of her hard-right government. This week parliament approved new laws making it more difficult for NGOs to carry out rescues.

Deadly migration route

UNHCR records show that 11,874 people have arrived in Italy so far in 2023 by sea, with 678 of them arriving at Calabria.

Typically, arrivals are from African countries, rather than the Middle East and Asia, with the majority of boats setting off from Libya.

Only 8.3% of arrivals are from Pakistan, 6.7% from Afghanistan and 0.7% from Iran. The rest are primarily from Africa, with 17.3% of arrivals from Ivory Coast alone, 13.1% from Guinea. Other African nations, including North African countries, make up most of the rest.

The most deadly migration route is the Central Mediterranean route, where at least 20,334 people have died since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project.