Two shipwrecks off the coast of southern Italy have killed at least 11 people and left more than 60 missing, according to rescuers.
The German charity RESQSHIP reported on Monday it had rescued 51 people from a sinking wooden boat and discovered ten bodies trapped on the bottom deck near the island of Lampedusa.
In a separate event on the same day, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported more than 60 persons missing, with 26 of them believed to be minors.
The boats were carrying migrants who had set off from Libya and Turkey, UN agencies said.
The survivors of the shipwreck near Lampedusa were handed over to the Italian coastguard and escorted ashore on Monday morning, while the deceased were hauled to the island, according to RESQSHIP.
The boat left Libya carrying migrants from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, according to a joint statement from the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN Children’s Agency UNICEF.
The other wreckage happened around 125 miles off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy, according to the agencies.
One of the surviving 12 people died after disembarking, the Italian coastguard said.
MSF’s Shakilla Mohammadi said she heard from survivors that 66 people were unaccounted for, including at least 26 children, some only a few months old.
The Mediterranean is the deadliest known migration route in the world.
More than 23,500 migrants have died or gone missing in its waters since 2014, according to UN data.
