Migrant boat capsizes off Italy and leaves at least 20 people dead, UN says

ROME (AP) — A boat carrying nearly 100 migrants capsized Wednesday in international waters off the Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 20 people and leaving a dozen missing, the U.N. refugee agency and local officials said.

Sixty survivors were brought to a center in Lampedusa, said a UNHCR spokesman in Italy, Filippo Ungaro. According to survivor accounts, there were 92 to 97 migrants on board when the boat departed Libya. Authorities have recovered 20 bodies, and were searching for another 12 to 17 survivors, according to the UNHCR.

It was not immediately known how long the migrants had been at sea. Lampedusa Mayor Filippo Mannino said the shipwreck happened “presumably at dawn.”

According to the UNHCR, 675 migrants have died making the perilous central Mediterranean crossing so far this year, not counting the latest sinking.

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

According to UNHCR, 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.

The irregular 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 ten years, according to the International Organization for Migration.

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.