Hundreds feared dead at migrant boat sinks

Hundreds of people were feared lost in the Mediterranean on Sunday after a boat carrying migrants toward Europe capsized off the Libyan coast, authorities said.

More than 700 passengers may have been on board, officials said, raising fears that the disaster could be the worst of the many accidents in which migrants have died on the hazardous migrant route from North Africa Europe.

As of Sunday afternoon, 28 survivors had been found alive as search and rescue vessels and aircraft combed the area, officials said. The Italian government said 24 survivors had been picked up from the water.

“They are literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water,” Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the local press.

A United Nations official initially said that warm waters in the area, around 63 degrees, lifted hopes of finding more survivors as numerous ships gathered at the site of the wreck. But as the day wore on, rescuers reported finding only debris and fuel on the surface where the vessel had sunk.

The stricken vessel was reported to have capsized late Saturday or early Sunday about 70 miles north of the Libyan coast, the embarkation point for many Europe-bound vessels packed with migrants. It was first spotted by a cargo ship.

Most migrants on the Mediterranean boats are from sub-Saharan Africa, but their ranks include Syrians and others escaping warfare and poverty, hoping to new lives in Europe. Many women and children are among those who risk the hazardous passage.

Initial reports indicated that boat tipped over when panicked passengers shifted to one side as a merchant ship approached at about midnight Saturday in a bid to rescue those on board the rickety craft.

A crisis has gripped the southern Mediterranean as warm weather has apparently prompted many migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded and unsound boats bound for Italy. Extensive smuggling and criminal networks in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa help facilitate the illegal traffic.

Officials say the unstable political situation in Libya, which has been largely without a functioning government since ex-strongman Moammar Ghadafi was overthrown in 2011, has contributed to the escalating crisis.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, speaking at an event in northern Italy, declared that Europe was experiencing “systematic slaughter in the Mediterranean.” Whether the latest incident would result in a new European plan to confront the crisis remained unclear.

Officials have reported soaring numbers of deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean.

Before the latest incident, about 900 migrants had already perished in Mediterranean crossings so far this year, compared with 96 during the first four months of 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based group.

Last week, at least 400 Europe-bound migrants are believed to have perished at sea when a wooden fishing boat capsized, the IOM said. One third of those on board were reported to have been women and children.

That incident was believed to have been caused by migrants surging to one side of their boat when they saw rescuers arriving.

For all of 2014, the group said, more than 3,200 migrants lost their lives during the treacherous sea crossing. In the week before Saturday’s accident, the group said, Italian maritime forces and commercial ships had rescued about 10,000 migrants.

This story was originally published April 19, 2015 at 11:17 PM with the headline "Hundreds feared dead at migrant boat sinks."