Eighty-four migrants are still missing after an inflatable craft sank off the coast of Libya, according to survivors cited by the International Organisation for Migrantion (IOM) on Saturday.
Eighty-four migrants are still missing after an inflatable craft sank off the coast of Libya, according to survivors cited by the International Organisation for Migrantion (IOM) on Saturday.
Twenty-six people were rescued from the boat which sank on Friday, and were questioned overnight.
“According to testimonies gathered by IOM in Lampedusa 84 people went missing,” said IOM spokesperson Flavio Di Giacomo on his Twitter feed.
Meanwhile, Austria said on Saturday that it was in talks with the European Union’s executive body to extend border controls introduced in 2015 to help stem the migrant flow.
“I can confirm that we are having discussions with the EU Commission and our European partners about this,” interior ministry spokesperson Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said.
His remarks came after the German media reported that several EU states were pressing Brussels to extend the temporary controls inside the passport-free Schengen zone for at least six months.
The EU allowed bloc members to introduce the restrictions as hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees began trekking up the Balkans from Greece towards western and northern Europe in September 2015.
