Rescue workers and survivors mourn over the coffins of two victims after hundreds of refugees were rescued and brought into the Sicilian port of Messina by the Italian coastguard ; In the space of a few days in mid-January 2017, some 1,500 people have been rescued trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in rough weather conditions. During rescue operations in Sicily, three people were found to have died of hypothermia and two of suffocation. At least eight bodies were recovered from a shipwreck of an over-crowded, flimsy vessel off the Libyan coast. Survivors and victims were brought to the island of Lampedusa and to Messina and Trapani, as UNHCR staff helped undertake arrangements for funerals for the victims. Director of UNHCR’s Europe Bureau Vincent Cochetel described it as “a tragic start to 2017” and said those making the journeys had gone through “unimaginable physical and psychological suffering.” Last year (2016) was the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean with more than 5,000 deaths recorded, compared to 3,771 recorded in 2015.
