ROME, Aug 17, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - An Italian rescue charity said on Monday it 
pulled 50 people to safety from a double-deck wooden boat in international 
waters off Libya, and recovered seven bodies.

Emergency said it spotted the "overcrowded wooden boat" in the early hours 
and began the rescue operation.

"Halfway through the rescue, our team noticed nine people lying on the deck," 
Jonathan Nani La Terra, the mission leader on board Emergency's Life Support 
search and rescue vessel, said in a statement.

The nine "had been moved there by other survivors who had recovered them from 
the hold where they had spent the entire journey", he said.

"Nothing could be done for seven of them. Two are in a critical condition due 
to suffocation," he said.

The migrants, who hail from Somalia and Egypt, said the boat had set off from 
Zuwara in Libya early on Sunday.

The International Organization for Migration said last week that the number 
of known migrant deaths in the central Mediterranean has increased 
drastically, even as migrant numbers fall because of harsher European 
policies.

This was partly due to a bout of severe weather in January and journeys 
growing longer with migrant boats departing further away from European 
shores.

Some 17,800 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, compared to 
39,116 during the same period in 2025, according to interior ministry data.