A boat carrying migrants capsizes off Italy, killing at least 26

In this file photo, the Italian coast guard ship Peluso enters the Sicilian harbor of Catania, Italy, Monday, April 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

ROME — A boat carrying nearly 100 migrants capsized Wednesday in international waters off the Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 26 people and leaving around another dozen missing, the Italian coast guard and UN agencies said.

Sixty survivors were brought to a center in Lampedusa, said Filippo Ungaro, a UNHCR spokesperson in Italy. There were 92 to 97 migrants on board when the boat departed Libya, according to survivor accounts. Authorities were still searching for any remaining survivors.

The coast guard said in a statement that the death toll stood at 26, but was still “provisional and being updated.”

Based on survivor accounts, about 95 migrants left Libya on two boats, International Organization for Migration spokesperson Flavio Di Giacomo said. When one of the two vessels started to take on water, all the passengers were transferred to the other boat -- made of fiberglass -- which then capsized because of overloading, he said.

It wasn’t immediately known how long the migrants had been at sea. Lampedusa Mayor Filippo Mannino said that the shipwreck happened “presumably at dawn.”

So far this year, 675 migrants have died making the perilous central Mediterranean crossing, not counting the latest sinking, according to the UN refugee agency.

“Deep anguish over yet another shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa, where UNHCR is now assisting the survivors,” Ungaro said on X.

In the first six months of 2025, 30,060 refugees and migrants arrived in Italy by sea, a 16% increase compared to the same period last year, according to UNHCR.

The migration route from northern Africa to southern Europe is considered one of the most dangerous in the world, with almost 24,500 people dying or disappearing on the Mediterranean crossing in the past decade, according to the IOM.

Most of the deaths have been attributed to small boats setting off from the coasts of Tunisia and Libya.

The deadliest shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa occurred on Oct. 3, 2013, when a boat carrying over 500 migrants from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ghana caught fire and capsized, killing at least 368 people. The tragedy prompted international calls for action to address the crisis.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni -- who made combating illegal immigration a top priority of her right-wing government -- pledged on Wednesday to continue fighting “unscrupulous traffickers” by preventing irregular departures and managing migration flows.

“That today’s tragedy occurred despite a ready and operational international response warns us that the necessary rescue effort is not sufficient and, above all, does not address the root causes of this tragic problem,” Meloni said in a statement.

The Associated Press