Six bodies recovered after migrant boat sinks in the Mediterranean

Six bodies have been retrieved from the central Mediterranean by the Italian coast guard after an inflatable dinghy sank in the area, the UN refugee agency has said.

The Italian authorities announced on Wednesday that they were still searching for up to 40 missing migrants. The incident comes a day after 10 other people were rescued from a vessel and taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

The survivors were in good physical condition and were being given psychological care, the Red Cross said.

According to the UNHCR’s Italian representative Chiara Cardoletti, a total of 56 people from Cameroon, Guinea, the Ivory Coast and Mali had been travelling towards Europe in the boat. The UNHCR said the rubber vessel left the Tunisian city of Sfax on Monday evening, and started to deflate a few hours into the journey.

On Saturday, a boat carrying Syrian refugees sank off the coast of Cyprus, with the island's authorities saying they had retrieved at least seven bodies. They added that two people had been rescued and that at least 11 more people were missing.

Thousands of people die each year attempting to cross the Mediterranean towards Europe. Official data are thought to underestimate the true number of victims, as many deaths go unrecorded.

The number who died or went missing in the sea between 2014 and 2024 was at least 24,506, according to the UN Missing Migrant Project.

Last year, more than 2,200 migrants either died or went missing in the Mediterranean, according to the UN. So far this year, 8,963 migrants have reached Italy, the country’s interior ministry said on Wednesday.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has attempted to reduce boat departures through economic agreements with north African countries.

Meloni claimed this week that the deals were responsible for an almost 60% drop in the number of migrants arriving in Italy. Last year, 66,317 reached the country, down from 157,651 in 2023.

“What do these numbers mean? They tell us that reducing the departures, and curbing the traffickers' business is the only way to reduce the number of migrants who lose their lives trying to reach Italy and Europe,'' she said on Tuesday.

Meloni’s government has come under fire for its decision to open asylum processing centres in Albania, a move challenged by an Italian court and referred to the European Court of Justice.