10 migrants die, more than 2,200 survive in crossing to Europe

Published 1:30 am Saturday, November 5, 2016

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

ROME— Ten bodies were recovered and more than 2,200 people were saved in Saturday migrant rescue operations in the central Mediterranean, the Italian coast guard said.

There were 16 rescue missions involving Italy’s coast guard and navy, a Spanish navy vessel part of a mission run by European Union border agency Frontex, several ships run by nongovernmental organizations, and private vessels, the coast guard said in a statement.

Earlier, a spokesman said that the dead were all found on the same rubber dinghy. He could not be specific about its location.

This year has been the deadliest on record for Mediterranean migrant deaths.

Since January, 4,220 people have died or gone missing while crossing from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, according to International Organization for Migration records last updated Friday.

In a speech at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he felt “shame” for this “disgraceful situation.”

“What has the world come to, if when a bank goes bankrupt, scandalous sums of money immediately appear to save it, while when this human bankruptcy (the migration crisis) happens, not even a thousandth of those sums are ready to save our suffering brothers and sisters,” the pope said.

“Thus the Mediterranean has become a cemetery, and not just the Mediterranean. … There are many cemeteries near walls, walls stained with innocent blood.”