Witnesses tell UNHCR about 500 dead in Mediterranean shipwreck

Migrants rescued from a small boat in the Mediterranean told the UN refugee agency they had witnessed a shipwreck that claimed 500 lives, a UNHCR spokeswoman said today.

The 41 survivors from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt described seeing “a large shipwreck that took place in the Mediterranean Sea claiming the lives of approximately 500 people,” Carlotta Sami said in a statement sent to AFP.