26 May 2017•Update: 26 May 2017
By Fatih Erel
GENEVA
Nearly 500 refugees are feared drowned after a wooden boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy, the UN migration agency said on Friday.
"On Thursday (25 May) a wooden boat carrying approximately 500 people capsized. A day later the IOM is reporting the remains of 34 people have been recovered from that sinking. It is still not known how many more may have died in that incident," the International Organization for Migration said in a statement.
"The unofficial number of migrants rescued Thursday is around 2,000, indicating that a total number of survivors rescued between Tuesday and Thursday would be close to 6,000, all believed to have sailed from Libya," IOM said.
According to the latest IOM figures, Mediterranean refugee arrivals reached 60,521 so far this year, with over 80 percent arriving in Italy while 1,530 refugees died in 2017 trying to reach Europe via the sea.
A rate of more than one child per day -- at least 200 children -- have died along the Central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa to Italy so far in 2017, UNICEF said on Thursday as leaders of G7 countries gathered in Sicily, a major locus for the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe.
UNICEF urged G7 countries to adopt a six-point action plan to keep refugee and migrant children safe, including protecting child refugees and migrants, particularly unaccompanied children, from exploitation and violence, and ending the detention of children seeking refugee status or migrating.
"Data for 2017 shows that an increasing number of refugees and migrants, including children, are taking the perilous Central Mediterranean route to reach Europe, despite the journey’s inherent risks. Between 1 January and 23 May, more than 45,000 refugees and migrants arrived to Italy by sea – an increase of 44 percent over the same period last year," UNICEF said.
"This includes some 5,500 unaccompanied and separated children -- an increase of 22 percent from 2016 -- who account for approximately 92 percent of all children arriving to Italy via the Central Mediterranean route," UNICEF added.
