A boat carrying 500 refugees has gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea.
A boat carrying about 500 refugees, including a newborn baby and pregnant women, has gone missing in the central Mediterranean, according to two humanitarian organizations.
Alarmphone Group said Friday that it had lost contact with the boat Wednesday morning. At the time, the ship was in high seas 320 km north of the Libyan port of Benghazi and more than 400 km (250 mi) from Malta and Italy’s southern island of Sicily.
Italian NGO Emergency said its life support ship and another charity ship, Ocean Viking, searched for the missing boat for 24 hours but found no sign of casualties.
A search for the boat is ongoing, an emergency spokesman said, adding that the occupants may have been picked up by another boat or managed to repair their engine and continue on to Sicily.