ROME — Twenty-nine migrants who were rescued alive in rough seas off the Libyan coast died before the Italian Coast Guard could get them to shore, officials said on Monday.
Two coast guard ships responded to a distress call from a boat battered by huge waves, some as high as 25 feet, and crews managed to evacuate more than 100 migrants from the boat. But the authorities said many of the migrants were so badly weakened by exhaustion and exposure that they did not survive much longer.
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Early reports said that seven of the 29 migrants who died did so before the Coast Guard reached the scene, but late on Monday a commander confirmed that all 29 were still alive when they were transferred to rescue vessels.
“These people died because of the cold,” Giusi Nicolini, the mayor of Lampedusa, said in an interview on the Italian news channel Sky TG24. “Had they been transported on the large ships of Mare Nostrum, they would be alive.”
