Migrants: 15 missing after sinking in the Mediterranean, heavier balance sheet according to survivors

A dozen migrants sighted on a rubber boat in distress were missing on Saturday, after an operation of the Italian Navy in Libyan waters, but survivors evoke a much heavier balance sheet. Three survivors of the wreck reported that 120 people were aboard the boat when they left Libya and that "there would be 117 missing, including ten women and a baby of 10 months," said Saturday on Twitter l International Organization on Migration (IOM).

According to survivors, #migrants on board were 120. There are so many children and young children (one was just 2 months old). Many of the #migrants on board were western Africans, but survivors say that there were also 40 Sudanese on board https://t.co/3untHhJgWK

From Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan. They came mainly from Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire and Sudan, according to the IOM. The three survivors, traumatized and in shock but in good health, reported being in the water for about three hours before being rescued, attending the tragedy. An Italian Navy helicopter operating in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) area on Friday recovered three shipwrecked "one in the water and two others aboard lifeboats previously launched by an army aircraft. the air, "said Italian admiral Fabio Agostini.

Survivors in a state of hypothermia. The crew of the Italian aircraft, in flight as part of the maritime surveillance operation "Mare Sicuro" had seen a short while ago a boat in distress with about twenty people on board, "said the admiral in an interview on Italian television broadcast on the Navy's Twitter account.The three shipwrecked survivors, in a state of hypothermia, were transported by helicopter to the hospital on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, while three bodies "that did not show no signs of life were seen in the water during the operation. "The operation was coordinated by the Tripoli authorities, who diverted a Libyan merchant vessel on the scene. "did research without finding any trace of the inflatable boat," said the Italian coastguard Saturday in a statement.

"Tragedy". "We can not allow the tragedy in the Mediterranean to continue," Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Saturday in a statement about the tragedy. The UNHCR also mentions another shipwreck in the Alboran Sea (between Spain and Morocco) in which 53 people were killed. The UN organization specifies however that it was "not able to verify the numbers of victims for the two shipwrecks". In addition, the German NGO Sea Watch announced Saturday to have rescued 47 migrants aboard a boat in difficulty. "All are safe and we take care of them," said the NGO on Twitter, stating that it has been warned by Permanence Alarm Phone, which receives calls from boats in difficulty, and by its reconnaissance aircraft Moonbird.

We just rescued 47 people off a rubber boat in distress. Earlier, @alarm_phone as well as ####################################################################### Now all are safe and being taken care of. # United4medpic.twitter.com / S877dbpY78

"We count the dead". "The shipwrecks are back in the Mediterranean, the canoes leave, we count the dead," Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said in a video posted on Facebook. "It's probably a coincidence that the ship of a German NGO revolves around the Libyan coast, and a coincidence if the smugglers start again from boats, boats, canoes half deflated," said the man strong of the Italian government, leader of the extreme right. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Red Crescent told AFP Saturday that 16 bodies "a priori" migrants were found on different beaches in the Libyan town of Sirte between January 2 and 15.