UN: Year is off to a deadly start for migrants crossing Med

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — The migration agency of the United Nations says the first three months of 2023 were the deadliest first quarter in six years for migrants crossing the central Mediterranean Sea in smugglers’ boats. The International Organization for Migration said in a report issued on Wednesday that nations’ delays in initiating rescues were a contributing factor. The agency documented 441 migrant deaths along the dangerous sea route between northern Africa and Europe’s southern shores during January, February and March. In 2017, 742 known deaths were documented in the same period. The agency’s director general says he fears the “intolerable” humanitarian crisis that persists on the central Mediterranean “have been normalized.”