ROME (AP) — The U.N. children’s fund urged governments on Thursday to prioritize the safety of migrant children after the latest Mediterranean shipwreck left about 20 people missing and added to a gruesome annual tally.
Among the seven survivors of the New Year’s Eve wreck off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa was an 8-year-old girl whose mother is among the missing, UNICEF said.
The agency noted that last month, an 11-year-old girl found floating off Lampedusa was believed to be the lone survivor of a migrant boat that had left Sfax, Tunisia, with about 45 people on board.
According to the International Organization of Migration’s missing migrant tracker, 2,275 people were unaccounted for in the Mediterranean in 2024, bringing the total number of people missing since 2014 to 31,180. The vast majority -– 24,466 — were believed to have died on the perilous central Mediterranean route, which is most often used by smugglers from Libya and Tunisia to ferry desperate people toward Italy.
UNICEF called on governments to honor their obligations under international law regarding refugees and to prioritize the safeguarding of children. “This includes ensuring safe, legal pathways for protection and family reunification, as well as coordinated search and rescue operations, safe disembarkation, community-based reception, and access to asylum services,” the agency said in a statement.
Under Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Italy has tried to stem arrivals by cracking down on migrant smuggling operations and deterring would-be refugees with the threat of having their asylum claims processed in Albania. Last year, 66,317 migrants arrived in Italy by boat, fewer than half as many as in the previous year, according to Interior Ministry statistics.
