At least 20 migrants die in shipwreck off Italy's Lampedusa, UN says
Some 60 survivors have been brought to a centre in Lampedusa, said a UNHCR spokesman in Italy. According to accounts of those who survived the shipwreck, there had been between 92 and 97 migrants on board when the boat departed from Libya.
Authorities have recovered 20 bodies, and were searching for another 12 to 17 survivors, the UNHCR said. Spokesman Filippo Ungaro voiced his "deep anguish" over the incident.
According to the UN agency, 675 migrants have died making the perilous Central Mediterranean crossing so far this year, not counting the latest sinking.
Since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Central Mediterranean route has become the most dangerous in the world, with more than 25,260 people having died or gone missing — many of them lost at sea.
The IOM says the true figure could be even higher as many deaths go unrecorded.
In what was one of the Mediterranean's worst ever shipwrecks, a boat departing from Libya capsized a few miles from Lampedusa on 3 October 2013. At least 368 people died. The outcry was so severe that Italy since established an annual day of remembrance for victims of that shipwreck and other fatal capsizings that year.
The EU has in recent years implemented stricter immigration controls, while Italy's government has introduced laws aimed at reducing the number of sea crossings.
In July, the EU's commissioner for migration said Europe would take a "firm" approach with authorities in Libya following a spike in irregular migration across the Mediterranean.
Separately, the leaders of Turkey, Italy and Libya discussed the Mediterranean migration route at a meeting in Istanbul earlier this month.
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