The tragedies of immigration in Italy do not stop. The Coast Guard continues to search, but hopes of finding survivors are slim. Sixty-six people died on Tuesday in a sailing shipwreck off Calabria, in Italy’s search and rescue area and a short distance from Greece’s.

The sailboat had set sail from Turkey about a week ago. According to the twelve survivors, the boat overturned due to an explosion. Among the missing are at least twenty-six minors: children, teenagers, and even newborns. There were not even life jackets on the ship in the disaster.

“Many private boats we met did not stop to help us. Finally we were rescued by French tourists who, without hesitation, rounded us up,” said one of the survivors. Most come from Iraqi Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

Turkey remains the starting point

“This is a new tragedy. The sea route chosen by human traffickers, which starts from Turkey, has not been treated with due care. A greater effort needs to be made, both from Europe and from all our governments,” said the president of the Calabria region, Roberto Occiuto.

It is a fact that these journeys from the eastern to the central Mediterranean continue, without being the main subject of Italian-Turkish meetings and contacts. Last week, in fact, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was an official guest of Georgia Meloni for the G7 summit in Puglia, but, despite so many bilateral meetings, it does not appear that they had any private conversation.

Over 800 victims in 2024

At the same time, a new shipwreck occurred in the central Mediterranean, south of Sicily. The rescue operation was undertaken by the NGO Resqship. Fifty-one people were safely brought ashore, but for ten migrants and refugees, hope had already been extinguished. “We are angry, the fortress of Europe is killing,” the members of the German NGO wrote online.

According to the relevant UN agencies, more than 800 migrants and refugees have died in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year. UNICEF calls for an immediate reinforcement of the means and human resources available to the Italian Coast Guard, because “every shipwreck is a clear, collective failure”.