Death toll rises to 34 in Italian boat accident

Italy’s coastguard has confirmed the death toll to 34, with the recovery of 14 more bodies from a migrant boat that crashed off the southern coast earlier this week.

“Eleven people were rescued and more than 60 are missing after a boat accident off the coast of Calabria earlier this week,” the coast guard said in a statement.

Air and sea search for the missing persons is continuing, it said.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard informed that the bodies of 12 people, including women and children, were found.

Earlier this week, medical charity Doctors Without Borders MSF reported 66 people missing, including at least 26 children.

According to the German aid group ‘Rescueship’, the bodies of 10 people were found in a migrant boat that sank off the island of Lampedusa in Italy on Monday.

According to the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, about 3,155 migrants died and went missing in the Mediterranean Sea last year. More than 1,000 people have died and gone missing this year.

The area between North Africa and Italy and Malta, the Mediterranean Sea is the world’s deadliest migration route.