April 2015 Libya migrant shipwrecks

Mediterranean situation in 2015

Sicily Lampedusa Rhodes Tripoli List of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea (Mediterranean)
Date	2015
Location	Various locations in the Mediterranean Sea
Cause	Vessels capsized
Outcome	Several vessels sank, rescues in process
Deaths	Over 1200 (estimated; 35 confirmed)
Missing	450

This article is a list of migrant vessels captured or capsized on the Mediterranean Sea. The incidents have been referred to as part of the European migrant crisis.

The number of reported deaths of migrants crossing the Mediterranean towards Italy increased in April 2015; a number of different incidents resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 people and led to the staging of rescue operations.

On 13 April 2015, a vessel sank off the Libyan coast with up to 550 migrants on board. More than 400 people are believed to have drowned. 144–150 people have been rescued and were taken to a hospital in Southern Italy. The capsizing occurred 60 nautical miles (110 km) off the Libyan coast.

Air and sea search operations started in the location of the shipwreck, looking for survivors. Nine bodies were recovered, and the Italian Coast Guard stated that "no more survivors have been found."

On 16 April, four immigrants arriving in Sicily said they were the only survivors of a sunken ship. They said that 41 people had drowned when their vessel overturned and sank shortly after departing from Libya. In an unrelated incident, 15 people were arrested in Sicily following reports that they had thrown 12 other passengers overboard, causing them to drown. According to eyewitnesses, a fight had broken out between Christian and Muslim groups on a boat that left Libya on 14 April, resulting in 12 Christians being thrown overboard.

On 19 April, another boat that had just left the port city of Zuwarah, Tripoli capsized off the Libyan coast, during the night, with up to 850 migrants aboard. 28 people were rescued. The incident happened 60 miles (100 km) off the Libyan coast and 120 miles (190 km) south of the southern Italian island, Lampedusa. The boat may have capsized when people on board moved to one side when a ship approached. People assumed that the passing ship would rescue them. Italian prosecutors say that a Bangladeshi survivor estimated 950 people were on board, and smugglers locked hundreds of the migrants in the ship's hold. Among those on board were about 350 Eritreans, 200 Senegalese, as well as migrants from Syria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Ethiopia.

The Maltese Navy and Italian Coast Guard began mounting a rescue operation. Despite 18 ships joining the rescue effort, only 28 survivors and 24 bodies were pulled from the water by nightfall. This incident is cited by some as the shipwreck with the highest death toll in the history of the Mediterranean. Among other incidents, however, the sinking of the SS Oria in 1944, with a death toll of over 4,000, claimed more lives.