GENEVA -- This year is on track to become the deadliest ever for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea after two heavily-loaded boats wrecked in the past week, killing as many as 700 people fleeing Africa for Europe -- the same number as died during all of last year.
That would raise the total number of migrants killed on the sea in 2014 to about 2,900, according to estimates from the International Organization for Migration and other officials.
More than 20,000 people have died in the past two decades trying to reach the Italian coast, including 2,300 in 2011 and about 700 in 2013. The migration organization said the death toll reflects turmoil across the Middle East and Africa. To escape those conflicts, many people are willing to board smugglers' unsafe boats.
About 500 Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese are feared dead after their boat was rammed and sunk off the Malta coast last week, the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group with 156 member countries, said Monday. Another 200 are feared dead in the wreck of a second boat that was carrying at least 250 African migrants to Europe when it capsized off the Libyan coast.
The migrants apparently lost off Malta were undertaking a perilous journey from the Egyptian port of Damietta when their boat was overtaken Wednesday by human traffickers in two vessels, said organization spokesman Christiane Berthiaume.
For years, thousands of African, Asian or Middle Eastern migrants have attempted risky voyages, primarily from Libya, across the Mediterranean to get to Italy's coastline and islands. Hundreds die en route. Unless they are eligible for asylum or have families or jobs in Europe, they risk expulsion by Italy.
This year, with the surge of conflicts, roughly as many arrived in the first few months of 2014 as in all of 2013.
Italy has repeatedly pleaded with its European partners for more help patrolling the waters. Previous deals between the Italian government and the regime of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to thwart smuggling operations in exchange for Italian infrastructure projects yielded at best only modest results and fell apart when the regime was ousted.
According to migration organization interviews with two of the survivors from the group that left Damietta, the traffickers rammed the boat carrying the migrants. The two survivors, both Palestinians, said there had been a violent confrontation between the migrants and the traffickers when the traffickers tried to move the migrants onto a smaller boat.
Berthiaume said the traffickers "used one boat to knock the other" and that there were about nine known survivors.
The Palestinians were rescued by a Panamanian container ship. Both were taken to Sicily. The other seven survivors were picked up by boats that took them to Crete, Greece and Malta.
Italian coast guard Lt. Alessandra Ventriglia said she "cannot say how many might be missing" because the coast guard didn't pick up the survivors who gave that account. She said a search of the area, which lasted through Sunday, found no trace of the boat or bodies.
Berthiaume said the other boat capsized Monday before leaving the coast near the Libyan capital. Coast guard spokesman Qassim Ayoub said dozens of bodies were being recovered about 11 miles off the coast of Tripoli's Tajoura district. Thirty-six African migrants, including three women -- one of them pregnant -- were rescued.
More than 100,000 people have been rescued in the Mediterranean since January, the U.N. refugee agency said. Last weekend alone, Italian rescuers helped save nearly 3,000 migrants.
The Panamanian container ship also rescued more than 380 people who were aboard another boat that sunk in the Mediterranean during the past week, the migration organization and Ventriglia said.
There were few other details available, partly because the rescue was carried out by a commercial ship.
Information for this article was contributed by Frances D'Emilio and Esam Mohamed of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/16/2014