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45 Persons Die Including Pakistanis As Boat Crashed Against Rocks Near Italy’s Coast

ROME: Forty-five people died, including some Pakistanis, when a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern Italian coast early on Sunday, authorities said.

The authorities further said that children sre also included in dead persons.

The vessel had set sail from Turkey several days ago.

The boat carrying migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries, and crashed in stormy weather near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on the eastern coast of Calabria.

As per the a provincial government official, the provisional death toll stood at 45.

Eighty-one people survived, with 22 of them taken to hospital, she said.

One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges, the Guardia di Finanza customs police said.

Cutro’s mayor, Antonio Ceraso, said women and children were among the dead. Exact numbers for how many children had died were not yet available.

Wreckage from the wooden gulet, a Turkish sailing boat, was strewn across a large stretch of coast.

Curra said the vessel left Izmir in eastern Turkey three or four days ago, adding that survivors had said some 140 to 150 were on board.

The survivors were mostly from Afghanistan, as well as a few from Pakistan and a couple from Somalia, she said, adding that identifying the nationalities of the dead was harder.

“Many of these migrants came from Afghanistan and Iran, fleeing conditions of great hardship”, Italian President Sergio Mattarella said.

Initial reports from ANSA and other Italian news agencies, spoke of 27 bodies washed up on the beach and more found in the water.

Ignazio Mangione, an Italian Red Cross official, told SkyTG24 that very few of the children believed to have been on the boat survived.


Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed “deep sorrow” for the deaths. Blaming human traffickers, she vowed to block migrant sea departures to prevent such disaster.u

“Stopping, blocking and hindering the work of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) will have only one effect: the death of vulnerable people left without help,” Spanish migrant rescue charity Open Arms tweeted in reaction to Sunday’s shipwreck.

In a separate statement, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was essential to stop sea crossings that he said offer migrants the “illusory mirage of a better life” in Europe, enrich traffickers, and cause such tragedies.