More than 70 migrants are feared to have died after a crammed small boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea.
The vessel had left the port of Tajoura, Libya, just hours before it began taking on water and capsized in turbulent weather conditions.
After receiving alerts, an aircraft sent by German rescue group Sea-Watch ‘found an overturned wooden boat with about 15 people desperately clinging to the hull, several people in the water and some bodies’, the group said in a statement.
Video footage shows around a dozen men perched on top of the overturned boat off the coast of Libya as others desperately try to pull themselves out of the water.
The International Organisation for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency both said 32 survivors were found by a rescue effort involving an Italian merchant ship and one sent from Liberia. Reports suggested that two bodies were also hauled onto the rescue ships.
The survivors – one of whom is reported to be a minor – were then transported by the Italian Coast Guard to the island of Lampedusa, which has become a gateway to Europe for thousands of asylum seekers vying to cross the Mediterranean.
All of those who survived were males from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt.
Filippo Ungaro, a spokesman for the United Nations Refugee Agency, said the migrants had been aboard a boat ‘very unsuitable for crossing the Mediterranean.’
Those who lived are said to have told authorities that there were more than 100 people on the vessel. However the International Organisation for Migration fears there could have been up to 120.
If those numbers are confirmed, it would represent one of the most serious migrant crossing tragedies in history.
Migrant rescue organisation Mediterranea Saving Humans said in a statement: ‘Tragic shipwreck on Easter: 32 survivors, two lifeless bodies recovered, over 70 people missing.
‘This latest shipwreck is not a tragic accident, but the result of policies pursued by European governments which refuse to open legal and safe entry routes.’
Sea-Watch wrote on X: ‘We are horrified. Over the Easter weekend, 71 people are presumed to have drowned in the Mediterranean.
‘Yesterday, our aircraft Seabird 2 spotted an overturned wooden boat: – 15 people were desperately clinging to the hull, others were in the water, some lifeless.’
At least 725 migrants have disappeared in the ocean between northern Africa and Europe in 2026 alone.
Only last week, the Italian coast guard discovered 19 bodies after a dinghy became overwhelmed in choppy waters approximately 80 miles from Lampedusa.
And in early February a shipwreck in conditions described as the ‘worst in 20 years’ saw more than 50 migrants – including two babies – go missing in the Mediterranean.
Since statistics were first produced in 2014, approximately 33,450 migrants have died or gone missing in Mediterranean waters.
Usually, they have left the coast of north Africa from countries such as Libya and Tunisia in search of safety in southern European nations like Italy, Malta, Turkey, Greece, Morocco and Spain.
