Dozens killed after boat carrying migrants breaks apart on Italian coast

The death toll in a migrant shipwreck near the southern Italian coast has risen to 61, an Italian official told Reuters on Monday, as searches continued for missing people.

The vessel, carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries, sank in rough sea conditions near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on the eastern coast of Calabria, in southern Italy. The victims included 12 children, authorities said earlier.

It had set sail from Izmir in western Turkey about four days ago and was spotted about 74 kilometresoff the coast late on Saturday by a plane operated by European Union border agency Frontex, Italian police said.

Patrol boats were mobilized to intercept it, but severe weather forced them to return to port, police said, adding that authorities then mobilized search units along the coastline.

A total of 61 people have been found dead so far, while 80 were rescued, said Manuela Curra, a provincial government official.

Based on reports from survivors, authorities believe 180 to 200 people in total had been on board the vessel, she said.

Arrest made

One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges on Sunday, but the Guardia di Finanza customs police said they were finalizing the arrest of two more people on suspicion of co-operating with the alleged smuggler

The incident reopened a debate on migration in Europe and Italy, where the recently elected right-wing government's tough new laws for migrant rescue charities have drawn criticism from the United Nations and others.

Among migrants first found washed up on the beach was a baby a few months old, according to ANSA news agency.

WATCH | Many of the migrants camefrom Afghanistan and Pakistan:

Dozens of migrants killed in boat crash off Italy

2 years ago

Duration 2:03

At least 59 migrants have died after a boat crashed off the coast of Italy with up to 200 people on board. Many of the dead were children. The crash has thrust the issue of irregular and dangerous migrant crossings back into the spotlight.

"When we got to the point of the shipwreck we saw corpses floating everywhere and we rescued two men who were holding up a child," emergency doctor Laura De Paoli told ANSA, adding that the seven-year-old boy was dead.

His voice cracking with emotion, Cutro's mayor Antonio Ceraso told the SkyTG24 news channel that he had seen "a spectacle that you would never want to see in your life a gruesome sight that stays with you for all your life."

'False prospect' of safety

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed deep sorrow for the deaths, and blamed human traffickers who profit while offering migrants "the false prospect of a safe journey."

"The government is committed to preventing departures, and with them the unfolding of these tragedies, and will continue to do so, first of all by calling for maximum co-operation from the countries of departure and of origin," she said.

Meloni's administration has said migrant rescue charities are encouraging migrants to make the dangerous sea journey to Italy, and sometimes work in partnership with traffickers.

Charities strongly reject both accusations.

"Stopping, blocking and hindering the work of NGOs[non-governmental organizations]will have only one effect: the death of vulnerable people left without help," Spanish migrant rescue charity Open Arms tweeted in reaction to Sunday's shipwreck.

Charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), operating on the ground, said it was assisting several people who had lost relatives in the shipwreck.

"We have cases of children who became orphans, such as a 12-year-old Afghan boy who lost his entire family, a family of nine people, including four siblings, parents and other close relatives," said Sergio Di Datofrom MSF.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said that more than two dozen Pakistanis were believed to have been among those who drowned.

The coast off Calabria is not routinely patrolled by NGO ships, which operate in the waters south of Sicily. That suggests they would have been unlikely to intercept the shipwrecked migrants regardless of Meloni's crackdown.

The head of the Italian Catholic Church, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, called for the resumption of an EU search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean, as part of a "structural, shared and humanitarian response" to the migration crisis.

A spokespersonfor the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM), in the same vein, appealed on Twitter for the strengthening of rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

Flavio Di Giacomo also called for the opening of "more regular migration channels" to Europe, and action to "address the multiple causes pushing people to try the sea crossings."

Earlier on Sunday, Pope Francis, the son of Italian migrants to Argentina and long a vocal advocate for migrants' rights, said he was praying for the shipwreck's victims.

Italy is one of the main landing points for migrants trying to enter Europe by sea, with many seeking to travel on to richer northern European nations. But do to so, they must brave the world's most dangerous migration route.

The United Nations Missing Migrants Project has registered more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014. More than 220 have died or disappeared this year, it estimates.