19 migrants found dead by Italian agency

• Two die trying to reach UK from France
• 30 rescued on Croatia’s border with Bosnia

ROME: The bodies of 19 migrants were recovered from an inflatable boat south of the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday by the Italian coastguard, a spokesman said.

Fifty-eight other people, including five children, were found alive during the rescue in the early hours of Wednesday and transported to Lampedusa, according to coastguard spokesman Roberto D’Arrigo.

Lampedusa mayor Filippo Mannino said seven people, including two children, were being treated in hospital for “hypothermia and intoxication from hydrocarbon fumes”. The coastguard rescue was staged some 135 kilometres off the Italian island inside Libyan search-and-rescue waters.

The boat was spotted drifting by an Italian reconnaissance plane on Tuesday but there were no Libyan coastguard or civilian ships in the area to assist, D’Arrigo said. A decision was taken to send an Italian coastguard vessel from Lampedusa. D’Arrigo said some of the migrants may have died while being transported back to Lampedusa in particularly rough weather conditions with waves up to seven metres high.

Images released by ANSA news agency showed what looked like body bags being taken off a coastguard vessel on a quay. Lampedusa is a key landing point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, with many dying trying the dangerous journey.

“We are deeply saddened by yet another tragic incident in the Mediterranean,” the UN refugee agency said on X, adding that its representatives were “providing immediate support to the survivors”.

English Channel

Two migrants died on Wednesday while trying to cross the Channel to Britain, French maritime authorities said. Rescue services responded to eight people in distress following an attempt to board a vessel on the northern French coast, according to the maritime prefecture for the Channel and the North Sea. The two dead were a Sudanese man and an Afghan man, according to a police source.

Authorities also took a woman to hospital, though her condition is not life-threatening. Five survivors were taken into custody, the police source added.

The eight were among around 30 people waiting to board the boat, spotted by French authorities on Wednesday morning.

Croatian river border

Croatian emergency crews on Wednesday rescued aro­u­­nd 30 migrants stranded in marshland near a river while crossing the country’s border with Bosnia, officials said.

Amid fears some may have died during the crossing, searches continued through the area, but no bodies were immediately found. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told a government session it was believed the migrants’ boats had flipped overnight after hitting marshy part of the river, leaving them stuck in a remote area.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2026

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