Tragic shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean leave hundreds of migrants feared dead, highlighting the growing humanitarian crisis at sea.
The UN migration agency announced on Monday that potentially hundreds of migrants are missing or presumed dead after several tragic shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean in recent days. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) expressed that it is deeply alarmed by the reports and is working to confirm the details.
According to the agency’s statement, several vessels are believed to have sunk over the past ten days, with early indications suggesting that hundreds of lives may have been lost at sea. Severe weather conditions were reported to be significantly hindering ongoing search and rescue operations.
IOM spokesperson Jorge Galindo informed AFP that three shipwrecks had been recorded on January 23 and 25, with preliminary reports estimating at least 104 fatalities. The incidents involved boats that had likely set sail from Libya and Tunisia, noted Merna Abdelazim from the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.
The IOM confirmed that three deaths occurred near Lampedusa, Italy, following the rescue of a boat that had departed from Sfax, Tunisia. Among the dead were one-year-old twin girls and a man who all succumbed to hypothermia before reaching land. Survivors reported that another vessel that left at the same time never arrived at its destination.
The organization is also examining unverified reports regarding nine boats that left Tunisia between January 14 and 21, carrying roughly 380 migrants onboard.
“In just the initial weeks of 2026, hundreds of people are already believed to be missing,” the agency stated, adding that the eventual death toll might be considerably higher. The IOM underlined that the scale of the disaster represents another devastating tragedy in the central Mediterranean area.
The agency attributed the loss of life to criminal smuggling and trafficking networks that send migrants to sea on overloaded and unsafe boats, often ignoring severe weather warnings. “Launching such voyages during a storm like Cyclone Harry heightens the irresponsibility,” the statement emphasized.
Describing the act as a criminal offense, the IOM condemned those who put lives in extreme danger by organizing departures during hazardous conditions. It called for stronger global cooperation to dismantle these illegal operations and prevent further casualties.
The IOM emphasized that the central Mediterranean remains the world’s deadliest migration route. Data from 2025 indicated at least 1,340 deaths, and between 2014 and the end of 2025, over 33,000 migrants were recorded dead or missing in the Mediterranean, according to the Missing Migrants Project.
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