Casualties feared as Italian coastguard launch search for shipwreck

KABUL (Pajhwok):  The Italian coastguard have searched off the coast of southern Italy for survivors or the bodies of dozens of migrants feared missing after two shipwrecks left 11 people dead, a media report said on Tuesday.

With up to 60 migrants potentially lost at sea, the coastguard said it has been looking for “possible missing persons” since late Sunday, “following the shipwreck of a sailing boat with migrants on board, presumably departing from Turkey”.

According to dawn.com rescue efforts began after “a ‘mayday’ from a French pleasure boat” some 120 nautical miles off the Italian coast, it said.

The French vessel alerted authorities to “the presence of the half-sunken boat”, before taking 12 surviving migrants on board. They were then transferred to an Italian coastguard boat, which took them to the town of Roccella Ionica in southern Italy.

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