MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The European Union is currently struggling to manage an enormous refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The majority of migrants try to reach stable EU states by sea. More than 3,770 migrant deaths occurred in 2015, with 1,475 deaths recorded so far in 2016, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Several shipwrecks last week on #Mediterranean appear to have claimed at lst 880 lives, according to info received from survivors in #Italy
— UNHCRNews (@RefugeesMedia) May 31, 2016
On Friday, the IOM said that dozens of migrants died between Wednesday and Thursday as a result of accidents in the Mediterranean's international waters. One incident occurred when a fishing boat traveling from Libya and carrying up to 650 migrants, capsized just as the Italian navy prepared to transfer the migrants on board its ship. The ship rescued 540 people and recovered five corpses.
Another incident occurred with a ship that arrived on Lampedusa, where several passengers allegedly died as a result of a fuel spill. On Thursday, a ship sank in the channel of Sicily with some 30 people reported missing.
