AP, Pozzallo :The UN refugee agency says over 700 migrants are feared dead in three Mediterranean Sea shipwrecks south of Italy in the last few days as they tried desperately to reach Europe in unseaworthy smuggling boats.Carlotta Sami, spokeswoman for UNHCR, told The Associated Press by phone Sunday that an estimated 100 people are missing from a smugglers’ boat which capsized Wednesday. The Italian navy took horrific pictures of that capsizing even as it rushed to rescue all those thrown into the sea from the boat.She said about 550 others are missing from a smuggling boat that capsized Thursday morning after leaving the western Libyan port of Sabratha a day earlier. She says refugees say that boat, which was carrying about 670 people, didn’t have an engine and was being towed by another packed smuggling boat before it capsized. About 25 people from the capsized boat managed to reach the first boat and survive, 79 others from it were rescued by international patrol boats and 15 bodies were recovered.In a third shipwreck on Friday, Sami says 135 people were rescued, 45 bodies were recovered and an unknown number of people – many more, the migrants say – are missing.Survivors are being taken to the Italian ports of Taranto and Pozzallo. Sami says the U.N. agency is trying to gather information with sensitivity considering that most of the new arrivals are either shipwreck survivors themselves or traumatized by what they saw.Italy’s southern islands are the main destinations for countless numbers of smuggling boats launched from the shores of lawless Libya each week packed with people seeking jobs and safety in Europe. Hundreds of migrants drown each year attempting the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing.Rights groups and activists have urged the EU to do more to protect refugees fleeing war and persecution following the recent deaths of scores trying to reach Europe in overcrowded boats.In three consecutive days, from Wednesday to Friday, at least 65 people were reported to have drowned as three boats heading from the Libyan coast to Italy tipped over in the Mediterranean.The Italian navy confirmed Friday’s incident on Twitter, saying it had rescued 629 people and pulled 45 corpses from the sea, adding that the search would continue for any missing bodies.The latest incidents have raised alarm among human rights groups and NGOs, who are urging EU member states to do more to protect the thousands escaping turmoil.”The first thing to do is to ensure a robust search and rescue operation,” Judith Sunderland, associate director for Europe at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera. “We’re still pretty much at the start of peak crossing season. In the months ahead, far more work has to be done to prevent these deaths.”Policy response has not been up to the challenge, even though we do have to recognise the much greater efforts in the past two years, since 2014.”From January 1 to May 25 this year, at least 1,475 died making the journey to Europe by sea, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This is an improvement over the last year when 1,828 refugees and migrants died in the first five months of 2015.None of the deaths this month occurred on the eastern Mediterranean route between Turkey and Greece, where arrivals have slowed to a trickle since the EU struck a deal with Ankara to curb the flow.HRW’s Sunderland said the EU’s naval mission in the Mediterranean – Operation Sophia – aimed at checking undocumented migration could be exacerbating the danger.
