The Italian coast guard on Friday recovered 14 new bodies of victims of the shipwreck that occurred earlier this week in the Ionian Sea.
The new discoveries of bodies by the Italian coast guard bring the number of known victims of the shipwreck to 34. Dozens of people are still missing and presumed dead.
The bodies, found on Friday, were transferred to a port in Calabria. Three coast guard vessels participated in the air and sea search, some 190 kilometers from the coast.
Survivors said the motorboat caught fire and capsized off the Italian coast overnight Sunday, about eight days after leaving Turkey with about 75 people from Iran, Syria on board. and Iraq, according to the United Nations refugee agency and other U.N. organizations. Eleven survivors were treated on land.
These latest deaths bring to more than 800 the number of people dead, missing or presumed dead who have crossed the central Mediterranean since the start of the year, an average of five deaths per day, according to UN agencies.