One man out of roughly 50. That is the count after a migrant boat went down in the central Mediterranean, and the one survivor was found only because a merchant ship happened to be nearby.
Malta’s armed forces told the Times of Malta that a cargo ship pulled the man from the sea off Tunisia on Friday. He was taken to Malta for medical treatment. The Armed Forces of Malta confirmed the rescue but did not say when it took place.
The boat had set out from Tunisia, a common departure point for migrants heading to Europe. Alarm Phone, the independent group that runs an emergency hotline for people crossing the sea, said the man had spent about 24 hours in the water. “Authorities confirm that one survivor was rescued to Malta. According to him, 50 people did not survive,” the group wrote on X. Reuters quoted Alarm Phone as saying the man indicated “everyone else on the vessel had died.”
Anadolu Agency reported the death toll on Sunday night, drawing on the Times of Malta’s account of what the survivor told rescuers. The figure of 50 rests on his word alone. Nobody has independently counted the missing.
Another week of missing boats
The sinking follows a worrying week. Alarm Phone had reported that around 150 people went missing in the central Mediterranean, involving at least three boats that left Tunisia. Anadolu noted that it is not yet confirmed whether the boat in this case was one of them.
In a separate incident reported the same day, the aid group Open Arms rescued a wooden boat carrying 28 African refugees about 45 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, according to the Qatar News Agency.
Sources
- Around 50 dead after migrant boat sinks in Mediterranean: Report (Anadolu Agency)
- One Rescued, 50 Likely Drowned After Illegal Migrant Boat Sinks Off Tunisia (Baird Maritime, Reuters reporting by Chris Scicluna and Valentina Za)
- Boat Sinking Off Tunisia: One Survivor, Around 50 Feared Dead (Qatar News Agency)
