64 people are missing and many have been rescued from two shipwrecks off the coast of Italy. At least 11 have died

ROME (AP) — Sixty-four people were missing in the Mediterranean Sea and several were rescued after their ship wrecked off the southern coast of Italy on Monday, United Nations agencies said in a statement.

In another shipping accident, rescue workers evacuated dozens of suspected migrants but found ten bodies trapped under the deck of a wooden boat off the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the German aid organization Resqship wrote on Monday on the social media platform X.

The boat, which was shipwrecked about 200 kilometers off Calabria, had set out from Turkey eight days earlier but caught fire and capsized, UN agencies said, citing survivors.

The search and rescue operation began after a mayday call from a French boat, the Italian coast guard said in a statement. The boat was operating in a border area where Greece and Italy are conducting search and rescue operations. The survivors and those still missing at sea were from Iran, Syria and Iraq, the UN agencies said.

The Italian maritime rescue coordination centre immediately diverted two merchant ships sailing nearby to the rescue site. Forces from the European border and coast guard agency Frontex also helped.

The survivors were taken to the Calabrian port of Roccella Jonica, where they disembarked and were given medical care. One of the eleven rescued migrants died shortly afterwards, the coast guard said.

During the second shipwreck, the crew of the lifeboat Nadir found 61 people on the waterlogged wooden boat.

“Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious,” it continued. “The ten dead were in the flooded lower deck of the boat.”

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