ROME (AP) – The Italian coast guard has recovered 14 more bodies from a shipwreck that sank in the Ionian Sea off the coast of southern Italy last week, bringing the number of people killed in the sinking to 34. Dozens more are still missing and presumed dead.
The body was recovered on Friday and taken to a port in Calabria, where three coast guard ships conducted a sea and air search about 190 kilometers (120 miles) from the coast.
The motorboat caught fire and capsized off the coast of Italy last Sunday night, about eight days after leaving Turkey with about 75 people on board from Iran, Syria and Iraq, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other UN agencies. Survivors reported that 11 survivors are being treated on land.
More than 60 missing after smuggling ship sinks in Mediterranean https://t.co/8cC1caXLz1
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The latest deaths bring the total number of people who have died, gone missing or been presumed dead while crossing the central Mediterranean to more than 800 so far this year, according to UN agencies, averaging five deaths per day.
Humanitarian groups condemned the deaths as evidence of the failure of Europe’s migration policies.
