Three underage siblings die on overcrowded boat trying to reach Italy

Three children, believed to be siblings, died after an overcrowded rubber dinghy faced inclement weather while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, a German nonprofit said on Sunday.

The siblings from war-torn Sudan were nine, 11 and 17 years old. They are the latest to die on a migration route that has killed more than 30,000 since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Rescuers from the German nonprofit RESQSHIP found their bodies after saving around 65 people from the boat in waters north of Libya overnight from Friday to Saturday. A fourth person has been reported missing.

Their mother and brother survived and were brought to shore on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, RESQSHIP said.

The vessel had departed from Zuwara in western Libya on Friday. During its journey, the dinghy started taking on water amid 1.5 metre waves.

Rescuers said they found the boat after receiving an alert from the Alarm Phone network, which takes calls from migrant boats in distress.

It was only after rescuers evacuated around two-thirds of the people on board that the bodies emerged floating in a pool of water and fuel at the bottom of the dinghy.

“I heard a woman screaming and a man pointing into the water,” rescuer Barbara Satore said. “The medical team attempted resuscitation but they had been underwater for an extended period of time.”

Pregnant women and children were among other people rescued, Satore said. Four required urgent medical evaluation and were transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel alongside their family members.

Separately, a different Mediterranean rescue group said it saved more than 50 people from one migrant group but failed to reach a second boat in distress after it was intercepted by Libyan coast guards.

“The so-called Libyan Coast Guard and associated actors are accused by an independent United Nations Fact-Finding Mission of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity in Libya,” the SOS Humanity NGO said in a statement.

“Forcing people who seek protection back to a country where they face torture and abuse is violating international law,” it added.