ROME – wooden boat crowded with migrants smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart before dawn Sunday off the Italian coast, authorities said as quoted by AP. Rescuers recovered nearly 60 bodies, and dozens more people were missing in the rough waters.
Officials feared the death toll could top 100 since some survivors indicated the boat had as many as 200 passengers when it set out from Turkey, United Nations refugee and migration agencies said.
At least 80 people were found alive, including some who reached the shore after the shipwreck just off Calabria’s coastline along the Ionian Sea, the Italian Coast Guard said. One of the agency’s motorboats rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a boy.
As sundown approached, firefighters said 59 bodies had been found.
One man was taken into custody for questioning after fellow survivors indicated he was a trafficker, state TV said.
Pope Francis told the faithful in St. Peter’s Square that he was praying for the dead, the missing and the survivors. He added he also was praying for the rescuers “and for those who give welcome” to the migrants.
“It’s an enormous tragedy,” Crotone Mayor Vincenzo Voce told RAI. “In solidarity, the city will find places in the cemetery” for the dead.
