Rome : Over 100 migrants were feared dead after two crowded boats capsised off Libya in separate incidents, with one of the tragedies captured on video that shows dramatic rescues and desperate final moments, according to a report by AFP.
The survivors of the first shipwreck, which happened on Thursday said some 650 people were aboard their boat when it left chaos-wracked Libya.
But they “spoke of 100 missing people who were stuck in the hull,” a spokesman for the International Organization of Migration in Italy, Flavio Di Giacomo, told AFP. Italian authorities had initially given a toll of five confirmed dead.
While the Italian navy was able to rescue some 560 people from the water yesterday, the shipwreck may be one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean in recent months. The navy captured the tragedy in a horrifying video that shows the boat roll over and dump its passengers into the water. Seconds later the sea begins to churn as the migrants swim for their lives. Several rescuers from the Italian navy jumped into the water in an effort to help, some grabbing people by the hair in order to pull them to safety.
Separately, the EU’s naval force announced that up to 30 migrants were believed to have died after another ship flipped over, drawing rescuers to the scene who threw life jackets and floats to those in the water. Another migrant boat sinking on Tuesday left a baby girl orphaned after both her parents died.