Mediterranean boat capsizing: deadliest incident on record
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
UNHCR has now interviewed most of the survivors of Saturday's boat tragedy in the Mediterranean. According to the survivors, their boat departed from Tripoli in Libya on Saturday morning with some 850 people on board, including many children. Among those on board were some 350 Eritreans, as well as people from Syria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Ethiopia.
Only 28 people are known to have survived the shipwreck, including a young man from Bangladesh who was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Catania, Sicily, on Sunday, and 27 people who were disembarked later by the Italian Coast Guard in Catania. From available information and the various accounts we've had, UNHCR now believes the number of fatalities to have been over 800, making this the deadliest incident in the Mediterranean we have ever recorded.
ADDITIONAL: Summary of spoken comments by Volker Türk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection (made in reference to the EU Joint Foreign and Home Affairs Council 10-point action plan on migration of 20 April 2015)
UNHCR welcomes the EU responsibility-sharing measures contained in the plan, such as asylum processing, relocation, and resettlement, which provide a welcome starting point for this response. UNHCR would also urge that such measures be expanded to further strengthen the asylum and protection component of the plan, including:
- Developing a robust search and rescue operation, along the lines of Mare Nostrum, which places an emphasis on saving thousands of lives;
- Making a firm commitment to receive a significant number of refugees for resettlement;
- Providing legal alternatives, such as enhanced family reunification, private sponsorship schemes, and work and study visas, so that persons in need of international protection do not need to resort to such dangerous voyages;
- Including a system of support for those countries receiving the most arrivals (Italy and Greece), and;
- Distributing responsibility for arrivals to avoid the current situation where a few countries are receiving most asylum-seekers, mainly Germany and Sweden, including through a comprehensive application of Dublin III and an intra-EU pilot relocation project for Syrians.
Media contacts:
- In Geneva, Adrian Edwards: +41 79 557 9120, [email protected]
- In Geneva, William Spindler: +41 79 217 3011, [email protected]
- In Rome, Federico Fossi: +39 349 0843461, [email protected]
- In Catania, Barbara Molinario: +39 338 546 2932, [email protected]
- In Catania, Carlotta Sami: +39 335 679 4746, [email protected]
- In Valetta, Fabrizio Ellul: +356 9969 0081, [email protected]
- In London, Andrej Majecic: +44 20 7484 5891, [email protected]
- In Paris, Philippe Leclerc: +44 144 43 48 50, [email protected]
- See also Media page
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Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria, Remarks by António Guterres, UNHCR, Kuwait City, 31 March 2015
31 Mar 2015 ... ... Since January, 15,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean by boat to seek protection in Europe. ... Border surveillance measures alone will not stop this tragedy. This is why we are not only asking ...... -
End of Year Message from the High Commissioner, 30 December 2009
30 Dec 2009 ... Dear colleagues, The year has not been free of tragedy. In a six month space, we lost three ... With a spate of involuntary returns characterizing the end of the year in the Mediterranean, Horn of ...... -
Willy Brandt Prize 2017
23 Jan 2017 ... ... and Turkey resulted in much lower new arrivals in Europe through the Eastern Mediterranean route. ... More than 5,000 people died in the process last year - a truly appalling human tragedy. Legal ...... -
Vulnerable Somalis suffer to reach Libya in search of safety and a future
2 Apr 2012 ... ... keep an eye on the remarkably cheerful boy. Tragedy struck again for Abdul in the desert. "My ... to Tripoli, including, he said, two men who subsequently drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean. ...... -
Stepped up fighting displaces tens of thousands more Libyans
10 Oct 2014 ... ... recent months have transited through Libya and made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. ... Many have not made it far from the Libyan coast. The latest tragedy, off the coast near Tripoli on ...... -
Over 100,000 people displaced in Libya over the past three weeks
10 Oct 2014 ... ... recent months have transited through Libya and made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. ... Many have not made it far from the Libyan coast. The latest tragedy among many others off the coast ...... -
Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria. Remarks by António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Kuwait City, 31 March 2015
31 Mar 2015 ... ... Since January, 15,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean by boat to seek protection in Europe. ... Border surveillance measures alone will not stop this tragedy. This is why we are not only asking ...... -
News comment: UNHCR shocked at deaths in Sahara Desert
2 Jun 2017 ... Thousands have died while trying to cross the Central Mediterranean into Italy through Libya. UNHCR ... with such deadly journeys. With this latest tragedy in the Sahara Desert, we once again repeat our ...... -
UNHCR's Recommendations to Italy for its EU Presidency, July-December 2014
25 Jul 2014 ... ... to launch Mare Nostrum in the wake of the tragedy off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013. ... 4 The work of the Task Force on the Mediterranean, and the Commission’s related ......