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The boat “capsized repeatedly, leaving people clinging to the side of the boat as their family members drowned around them,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, the UN Children Agency (UNICEF) country coordinator for Italy, said in a statement posted online.

The survivors, all male Syrian nationals, told rescuers they had embarked from Libya and that 21 of the 28 people aboard, including three children, had fallen into the sea during rough weather.

Several Sudanese were also on the boat according to the Italian office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

The deadly Mediterranean crossing

The central Mediterranean is among the deadliest migration routes in the world, according to the recent Missing Migrants Project from UN migration agency IOM.

The IOM found that more than 2,500 migrants died or went missing attempting the crossing last year alone, and over 1,000 more so far this year.  

Generally, one in three migrants die while fleeing conflict, according to IOM’s analysis of migrant deaths from 2014-2023.

Last year was the deadliest on record, with 8,541 migrant victims. Nearly 60 per cent of these deaths were linked to drowning.

English Channel tragedy

Reports of six children and a pregnant mother among the 12 who drowned in the English Channel on Tuesday is yet another “unacceptable tragedy”, the UNICEF office that covers Europe said on Wednesday.

“We cannot stand by and watch another of Europe’s shores become a burial ground for children,” they emphasised, adding that one in five people arriving irregularly in the UK are children.

“More safe and regular pathways, as well as solutions to the root issues driving people to leave their home, are urgently needed,” IOM chief Amy Pope stated on X in response to the needless deaths.