A rescue worker from the Proactiva Open Arms Spanish NGO helps a migrant, rescued off the Libyan coast, on Tuesday July 17, 2018. Proactiva Open Arms said it found one woman alive Tuesday and another dead, along with the body of a toddler, amid the drifting remains of a destroyed migrant boat some 80 nautical miles from the Libyan coast. (Proactiva Open Arms via AP)

A rescue worker from the Proactiva Open Arms Spanish NGO helps a migrant, rescued off the Libyan coast, on Tuesday July 17, 2018. Proactiva Open Arms said it found one woman alive Tuesday and another dead, along with the body of a toddler, amid the drifting remains of a destroyed migrant boat some 80 nautical miles from the Libyan coast. (Proactiva Open Arms via AP)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Nineteen people drowned when a boat loaded with as many as 150 people who were thought to be migrants capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus, a Turkish Cypriot official said Wednesday.

Tolga Atakan, the transport minister in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus, told The Associated Press that rescue crews were searching for 25 missing passengers in an area where a passing cargo ship reported spotting people in the water.

The Turkish coast guard said it rescued 103 of the capsized vessel’s passengers and took them to Turkey. One seriously injured person was being treated at a hospital in the northern part of Cyprus’ capital, Nicosia, Atakan said.

Atakan said the nationalities of the passengers have not been confirmed. When asked if they were thought to be migrants, Atakan said “most probably.”

Aysegul Baybars, the interior minister in northern Cyprus, told Turkey’s CNN-Turk television that authorities were investigating if bad weather, sabotage or other factors caused the sinking.

She said authorities don’t know where the vessel has set sail from or where it was heading.

The capsizing occurred around 16 miles (26 kilometers) north of Cyprus’ Karpas Peninsula, but it’s not yet clear when.

In May, nine Syrian migrants drowned when their boat capsized off Cyprus’ northern coast. The United Nations’ refugee agency said it was the first shipwreck involving migrants off the island nation.

Constantinos Petrides, the interior minister in the internationally recognized government of Cyprus based in the south, told The Associated Press that new arrivals have grown at an alarming pace.

The 2,500 asylum applications Cyprus received during the first half of the year puts the country alongside Greece as having the most asylum-seekers per capita in the European Union, Petrides said.

He alleged that trafficking rings are bringing immigrants, mainly Syrians, by boat from Turkey to northern Cyprus.

Thousands of Europe-bound migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa this year, a dangerous journey often made in overcrowded and inadequate vessels procured by human smugglers.

The International Organization for Migration said before the Cyprus wreck that 1,443 people died or went missing this year in the Mediterranean Sea route from northern Africa as of July 15.

Friction between the Italian government and private aid groups that patrol the sea to look for people in danger ratcheted up Wednesday when a Spanish aid organization shunned an Italian port for one in Spain. Proactiva Open Arms said it found a survivor and two dead bodies from a migrant boat wreck on Tuesday, and accused Italy of complicity.

The Open Arms vessel was expected to arrive on Saturday in the port of Palma de Mallorca, said a Spanish government spokeswoman who was not authorized to be named in media reports.

The aid organization accused Libya’s coast guard, which has received training from Italy and funding from the European Union, of abandoning the three people Monday when it took 158 other migrants from the boat and destroyed it.

But the aid group also aimed sharp criticism at Italian authorities, who initially granted the Open Arms permission to dock in the Sicilian port of Catania, according to Proactiva.

In a statement on Wednesday, the aid group said it did not trust how the Italian government would handle the investigation of Monday wreckage after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini referred to the group’s account as “lies and insults.”

The strongman in the new Italian populist government, Salvini has vowed to halt the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, giving aid to Libyan authorities and vowing to close the country’s ports to aid groups it accuses of helping human traffickers by picking up migrants and bringing them to Europe.

Proactiva reported that a woman and a young boy were dead by the time private rescuers found them Tuesday morning in waters some 80 miles off the Libyan coast. Rescuers also found a woman clinging to a piece of wood amid the remnants of a 10-meter-long inflatable boat.

Libya’s coast guard denied on Tuesday having left anyone at sea and blamed any deaths at sea on human traffickers and the “presence of such irresponsible, non-governmental groups in the region.”

In addition to accusing Libyan coast guards, Proactiva’s director Oscar Camps said Italy was to blame for “enlisting assassins” to “kill and torture” those who try to cross the Mediterranean.

“The policies of Matteo Salvini are responsible for this crime,” Camps said in a statement.

Salvini responded to the criticism in a tweet that rhetorically asked why the Open Arms vessel was shunning the Italian safe port offer.

“Could it be that they have something to hide?” he asked.

Humanitarian groups say the pressure being exerted on them by hostile governments is increasing the number of deaths at sea, despite a sharp drop in refugee and migrant arrivals in the European Union since 2015.</s>Turkish Cypriot official: 16 drowned, 105 rescued, up to 30 missing after migrant boat capsizes off Cyprus' north coast

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Turkish Cypriot official: 16 drowned, 105 rescued, up to 30 missing after migrant boat capsizes off Cyprus' north coast.</s>NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Turkish Cypriot official: 16 drowned, 105 rescued, up to 30 missing after migrant boat capsizes off Cyprus' north coast.</s>Nineteen people died when a boat carrying about 150 migrants sank off the coast of northern Cyprus, and rescuers were searching for 25 other people, Turkey’s coast guard said on Wednesday.

It said 103 migrants were rescued by boats and helicopters of the Turkish and northern Cypriot coast guards, helped by commercial boats in the area, from the sunken boat some 30 km (18 miles) off the north Cyprus coast.

One rescued person was in critical condition and has been brought to northern Cyprus by helicopter, the coast guard said.

Burhanettin Kocamaz, mayor of the southern Turkish province of Mersin, told broadcaster Haberturk that the rescued migrants and the bodies of those killed in the sunken boat were being brought to Mersin.

Kocamaz said there was no information about the origins of the migrants yet, adding authorities did not yet know where the migrant boat had come from.

Television footage of the passengers’ arrival showed several ambulances arriving at Mersin’s Tasucu harbour, from where they were taken to the Silifke district for treatment.

The coast guard said a Panama-flagged commercial ship spotted the migrant boat some 25 nautical miles from Turkey’s southern province of Antalya and alerted the coast guard on Wednesday morning.

In 2015, Turkey became one of the main launch points for more than a million migrants taking the dangerous sea route to the European Union, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

A 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union sharply reduced the flow of refugees into the bloc, after thousands died crossing from Turkey to Greek islands a few miles offshore.

From January to May this year at least 26 migrants died trying to cross to Europe from Turkey, according to coast guard statistics.

Mediterranean arrivals to the bloc, including refugees making the longer and more perilous crossing from North Africa to Italy, stood at 172,301 in 2017, down from 362,753 in 2016 and 1,015,078 in 2015, according to data from the United Nations.</s>An Open Arms lifeguard gives a thumbs-up to a migrant at the other end of a rubber boat in the Mediterranean Sea, June 30, 2018

Nineteen people drowned when a boat loaded with as many as 150 people who were thought to be migrants capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus, a Turkish Cypriot official said Wednesday.

Tolga Atakan, the transport minister in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus, told The Associated Press that rescue crews were searching for 25 missing passengers in an area where a passing cargo ship reported spotting people in the water.

The Turkish coast guard said it rescued 103 of the capsized vessel's passengers and took them to Turkey. One seriously injured person was being treated at a hospital in the northern part of Cyprus' capital, Nicosia, Atakan said.

Atakan said the nationalities of the passengers have not been confirmed. When asked if they were thought to be migrants, Atakan said "most probably."

Aysegul Baybars, the interior minister in northern Cyprus, told Turkey's CNN-Turk television that authorities were investigating if bad weather, sabotage or other factors caused the sinking.

She said authorities don't know where the vessel has set sail from or where it was heading.

The capsizing occurred around 16 miles (26 kilometers) north of Cyprus' Karpas Peninsula, but it's not yet clear when.

Thousands of Europe-bound migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa this year, a dangerous journey often made in overcrowded and inadequate vessels procured by human smugglers.

The International Organization for Migration said before the Cyprus wreck that 1,443 people died or went missing this year in the Mediterranean Sea route from northern Africa as of July 15.

Friction between the Italian government and private aid groups that patrol the sea to look for people in danger ratcheted up Wednesday when a Spanish aid organization shunned an Italian port for one in Spain.

Proactiva Open Arms said it found a survivor and two dead bodies from a migrant boat wreck on Tuesday, and accused Italy of complicity.

The Open Arms vessel was expected to arrive on Saturday in the port of Palma de Mallorca, said a Spanish government spokeswoman who was not authorized to be named in media reports.

The aid organization accused Libya's coast guard, which has received training from Italy and funding from the European Union, of abandoning the three people Monday when it took 158 other migrants from the boat and destroyed it.

But the aid group also aimed sharp criticism at Italian authorities, who initially granted the Open Arms permission to dock in the Sicilian port of Catania, according to Proactiva.

In a statement on Wednesday, the aid group said it did not trust how the Italian government would handle the investigation of Monday wreckage after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini referred to the group's account as "lies and insults."

The strongman in the new Italian populist government, Salvini has vowed to halt the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, giving aid to Libyan authorities and vowing to close the country's ports to aid groups it accuses of helping human traffickers by picking up migrants and bringing them to Europe.

Proactiva reported that a woman and a young boy were dead by the time private rescuers found them Tuesday morning in waters some 80 miles off the Libyan coast. Rescuers also found a woman clinging to a piece of wood amid the remnants of a 10-meter-long inflatable boat.

Libya's coast guard denied on Tuesday having left anyone at sea and blamed any deaths at sea on human traffickers and the "presence of such irresponsible, non-governmental groups in the region."

In addition to accusing Libyan coast guards, Proactiva's director Oscar Camps said Italy was to blame for "enlisting assassins" to "kill and torture" those who try to cross the Mediterranean.

"The policies of Matteo Salvini are responsible for this crime," Camps said in a statement.

Salvini responded to the criticism in a tweet that rhetorically asked why the Open Arms vessel was shunning the Italian safe port offer.

"Could it be that they have something to hide?" he asked.

Humanitarian groups say the pressure being exerted on them by hostile governments is increasing the number of deaths at sea, despite a sharp drop in refugee and migrant arrivals in the European Union since 2015.</s>ANKARA: Nineteen people died when a boat carrying 150 migrants sank off the coast of northern Cyprus and rescuers were searching for 25 other people, Turkey's coast guard said on Wednesday.

It said 103 migrants were rescued by boats and helicopters of the Turkish and northern Cypriot coast guards, helped by commercial boats in the area, from the sunken boat some 30 km (18 miles) off the north Cyprus coast.

One rescued person was in critical condition and has been brought to northern Cyprus by helicopter, the coast guard said. It did not say where the other rescued passengers had been taken.

A Panama-flagged commercial ship spotted the migrant boat some 25 nautical miles from Turkey's southern province of Antalya and alerted the coast guard on Wednesday morning, the statement said.

In 2015, Turkey became one of the main launch points for more than a million migrants taking the dangerous sea route to the European Union, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

A 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union sharply reduced the flow of refugees into the bloc, after thousands died crossing from Turkey to Greek islands a few miles offshore.

From January to May this year at least 26 migrants died trying to cross to Europe from Turkey, according to coast guard statistics.

Mediterranean arrivals to the bloc, including refugees making the longer and more perilous crossing from north Africa to Italy, stood at 172,301 in 2017, down from 362,753 in 2016 and 1,015,078 in 2015, according to data from the United Nations.</s>NICOSIA, Cyprus — Turkish Cypriot official: 16 drowned, 105 rescued, up to 30 missing after migrant boat capsizes off Cyprus’ north coast.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>At least 19 migrants have died and 30 are missing after a boat carrying about 160 people sank off the coast of northern Cyprus.

More than 100 have been rescued by Turkish and Cypriot coast guards helped by commercial boats in the area, 30 miles off the Karpas peninsula of Cyprus.

A Panama-flagged commercial ship spotted the migrant boat some 25 nautical miles from Turkey's southern province of Antalya and alerted the coast guard on Wednesday morning, the statement said.

Pictures have emerged showing coastguard vessels and helicopters during the search operation.

A Turkish Cypriot official said 19 people had drowned and 105 have been rescued from a boat that capsized.

The official said one seriously injured person was being treated in a hospital on Cyprus. Survivors were airlifted by Turkish helicopters to Mersin, Turkey.

The official said authorities believe that an estimated 147-150 people were aboard the boat.

Turkey's DHA news agency said that the refugees were Syrians seeking to go to Europe but this had yet to be confirmed.

Cyprus, some 100 miles from Syria's coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey, Greece and Italy although asylum applications have risen sharply.

The island has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in response to a Greek military junta-sponsored coup.

In 2015, Turkey became one of the main launch points for the dangerous sea leg for more than a million migrants seeking to reach the European Union, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

A 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union sharply reduced the flow of refugees into the bloc, after thousands died crossing from Turkey to Greek islands a few miles offshore.

From January to May this year at least 26 migrants died trying to cross to Europe from Turkey, according to coast guard statistics.

Mediterranean arrivals to the bloc, including refugees making the longer and more perilous crossing from north Africa to Italy, stood at 172,301 in 2017, down from 362,753 in 2016 and 1,015,078 in 2015, according to data from the United Nations.</s>At least 19 migrants drowned and up to 30 were missing Wednesday after their boat sank in the Mediterranean off the north of Cyprus, local security forces said.

The boat was carrying 150 people, reportedly Syrians, when it went down off the coast of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot-controlled portion of the island, which is only recognised by Ankara.

More than 100 people were rescued in a joint operation by Turkish Cypriot and Turkish coastguards after the boat sank off the village of Gialousa (Yeni Erenkoy in Turkish) on the panhandle Karpas peninsula.

At least 19 drowned and between 25 and 30 were still missing, the Turkish Cypriot security forces (GKK) said in a statement.

One was taken by helicopter to Cyprus in grave medical condition, the GKK added. The other survivors were however being taken by ship to the port of Tasucu in Turkey's southern Mersin region.

Search efforts were underway to recover the missing with commercial vessels also taking part, reports said.

The Turkish coastguard said in a statement that the accident took place 30 kilometres (18 miles) off the shore of northern Cyprus. It said that 103 survivors had been rescued.

Turkey's DHA news agency said those on board the vessel were Syrians seeking to go to Europe but this had yet to be confirmed.

Cyprus, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Syria's coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey, Greece and Italy although asylum applications have risen sharply.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, 47,637 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea up to July with only 47 entering Cyprus.

In the same period, 1,404 people lost their lives in the crossings, mostly those trying to cross from Africa to Italy or Malta.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in response to a Greek military junta-sponsored coup.

"The Mediterranean must stop being a cemetery for refugees," Turkish Cypriot president Mustafa Akinci said after the disaster.

Turkey has however been one of the hubs for migrants and refugees fleeing Syria and other trouble spots like Afghanistan and Iraq.

More than a million people, many fleeing the war in Syria, crossed to European Union member Greece from Turkey in 2015 after the onset of the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II.

Turkey struck a deal with the EU in 2016 in an effort to stem the flow of migrants, and agreed to take back illegal migrants landing on Greek islands in exchange for incentives including financial aid.</s>Italy refuses to take in boat with 450 migrants, tells them to 'go to Malta'

A boat carrying 160 migrants sunk off the coast of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, killing 16 people, Turkish media reported on Wednesday, adding that 101 migrants had so far been rescued.

It said at least 30 people were missing from the sunken boat and that Turkish and Northern Cypriot coast guards, along with commercial boats in the area, were carrying out search and rescue operations.
A migrant boat capsizes off the northern coast of Cyprus, killing at least 19 people, while 25 are reported missing, and the Turkish coast guard rescues 103.