Advertisement

Rescuers find more dead after Italy shipwreck

STORY: Rescuers trolling the Mediterranean recovered more bodies on Monday, a day after a wooden sailboat carrying migrants to Europe shipwrecked off of Italy's southern coast.

Debris lined the beach after the vessel crashed into rocks in stormy weather on Sunday … leaving scores dead, including more than a dozen children.

Pakistan's Prime Minister said more than two dozen Pakistanis were believed to have been among the boat's passengers.

Rescuers said many Afghanis and some Iranians had also been aboard.

Local authorities said 80 people survived the shipwreck, but as many as 200 may have been aboard the vessel when it left from Turkey, suggesting many more passengers are missing.

Locals left flowers and candles on metal railings outside a sports hall where dozens of coffins were laid out ahead of an eventual funeral.

The shipwreck has reignited a debate on migration in Europe and Italy, where the recently elected right-wing government's tough new laws for migrant rescue charities have drawn criticism from the United Nations and others.

The United Nations Missing Migrants Project has registered more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean since 2014, including more than 220 just this year, making it the most dangerous migrant route in the world.