Rescuers rushed to save the migrants coming from Libya, but the bodies of the sisters were found inside the boat.
11:47, Sun, Aug 24, 2025 Updated: 12:30, Sun, Aug 24, 2025
Three girls have drowned on a mgrant boat to Italy (Image: Getty)
Three sisters have drowned after a "dangerously overcrowded" migrant boat heading to Italy overturned. Rescuers rushed to save the migrants coming from Libya, but the bodies of the sisters, aged 9, 11 and 17, were found inside the boat.
65 others were rescued by migrant charity RESQSHIP, with their Nadir vessel scrambled to assist as "waves of up to 1.5 meters repeatedly washed over" the rubber boat, the organisation said in a statement. Three family members of the sisters that perished survived, including the mother and a brother.
The charity said one person fell overboard earlier in the crossing and has yet to be found.
RESQSHIP said those rescued included children, a seven-month-old baby, and three pregnant women.
Barbara Sartore, Communications Coordinator on board of the NADIR said: “While we were evacuating the people one by one from the rubber boat onto the NADIR, I suddenly heard screams and someone pointed to the water inside the boat.
"It became clear that there were bodies underneath the surface. The boat was dangerously overcrowded, it was pitch-dark, water was flooding in, people were panicking.
"In that chaos, it was impossible to see that the three sisters, sitting deep inside the boat, had already drowned. When the survivors realised, it was sheer horror.”
The Nadir is a 19-meter motor glider, the Nadir that operates in the central Mediterranean, "observing, documenting, reconnoitring – and if there is no other ship around, we help people in distress at sea, as required by international maritime law", the charity explains on its website.
RESQSHIP said the migrant boat had departed from Zuwara, a coastal city in Libya, overnight on Friday.
The Nadir was alerted by the hotline rescue operator Alarm Phone and intercepted the vessel, the statement said, as per the news agency.
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