Some 700 people were feared dead after a fishing boat packed with migrants capsized off the Libyan coast last night in what may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis, the Reuters website reports today (April 19, 2015).
Twenty-eight people were rescued and 24 bodies recovered from the 20-meter-long vessel, which sank around 70 miles from the Libyan coast, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Italian coast guard said.
If confirmed, the death toll would bring the total number of dead since the beginning of the year to more than 1,500 as the flow of migrants seeking to flee poverty, war, and insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East has continued.
Italian officials said 17 vessels from the navy and coast guard, merchant ships in the area, and a Maltese patrol boat -- as well as aircraft from the navy and coast guard -- were involved in the search-and-rescue operation, which was being coordinated by the Italian coast guard in Rome.
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