The death toll and number of missing persons in the Mediterranean in 2024 have now surpassed 2,200, with nearly 1,700 lives lost on the central Mediterranean route alone. This includes hundreds of children, who make up one in five of all people migrating through the Mediterranean. The majority are fleeing violent conflict and poverty.
In December, an 11-year-old girl, wearing a simple life vest and clinging to a pair of tyre tubes, was rescued off Lampedusa. She told rescuers she had spent three days at sea after a shipwreck that is presumed to have killed 40 people.
Despite the waves, seven people, including an eight-year-old Syrian boy, managed to continue the journey on the tilting vessel before being found by an Italian police patrol boat on Tuesday night close to the southern island of Lampedusa.
In a separate incident on Monday, two people, including a five-year-old child, died and 17 survived after the vessel they were on broke down off the northern Tunisian coastline during an attempt to reach Europe.
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