The Mediterranean claimed 170 lives from immigrants

Italian navy reports the shipwreck of a ship off Libya's coast, with 117 people on board, while the Moroccan and Spanish authorities have apparently failed to find a missing boat in the western Mediterranean.

The UN Agency for Refugees, however, cares to stress that it cannot independently verify the number of victims. In a summary for 2018, however, it highlights that more than 2,200 people have lost their lives in their failed efforts to cross the Mediterranean.

We cannot take a look at this high number of people who are losing their lives at the doors of Europe”, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Philippo Grandi said in a press release. “No attempt should be spared, or hindered, for saving lives at risk in the middle of the sea”, he further stressed.

The first boat, with 53 people aboard, has reportedly disappeared in the Alboran Sea in the westernst corner of the Mediterranean. A survivor is being treated in a Morocco hospital after spending about 24 hours stranded at sea. His research has been unsuccessful for several days.

A second type of gomone boat left Libya on Saturday, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Spouse Flavius Di Giacomo says 3 survivors have told them that there were 120 people aboard her board who left the banks of the precabul in Libya.

An Italian Air Force plane launched two floating vehicles Friday, as it spotted the drowning of the gomone in international waters. The three survivors are already suffering from hypothermia, and were rescued by helicopter to receive rapid aid on the island of Lampedusa.

The IOM says 4,216 immigrants have passed through Europe sea in the first 16 days of 2019, more than twice as many as came in the same period last year. Several European states, including Italy, have refused to accept immigrants in recent years