EDITOR'S NOTE (GRAPHIC WARNING): This story contains a photograph of a child who died, an image readers may find distressing.
A photo of a rescue worker cradling a baby who drowned after yet another boat capsized in the Mediterranean is drawing attention to the hundreds of migrants still dying each month trying to reach Europe.
a German humanitarian organization, released the photo after a small wooden boat carrying an estimated 400 to 500 people toppled over on Friday. The Italian navy said about 135 migrants were saved.
It was one of at least three shipwrecks in three days off the Italian coast last week. An estimated 700 died.
Steve Scherer, a Rome-based journalist with Reuters, contacted the German rescuer, who did not want to be named. The man is a father of three. He said he sang to comfort himself while cradling the dead child and called the moment 鈥渋ncomprehensible.鈥�
Scherer told 麻豆影视 Channel Sea-Watch is attempting to help 鈥渉umanize these enormous numbers.鈥�
The photo is reminiscent of the image of being carried off a beach by a Turkish officer after drowning last summer. That photo grabbed the attention of many around the world, including Canadian MPs. The refugee crisis became a major election issue in last fall鈥檚 federal election.
Although Scherer said he鈥檚 heard no official reactions to the photo, it is getting a lot of attention in Europe on social media. 鈥淭he reaction I鈥檝e seen,鈥� he said, 鈥渋s when is this going to stop?鈥�
Scherer said the beginning of summer has brought warmer and calmer seas, which has caused more boats to try the perilous trip from Libya to Italy. In addition to the 700 who died last week, he said about 13,000 were rescued.
Scherer said many of them are fleeing prison, hunger and violence.
GRAPHIC WARNING: The photo below shows a Sea-Watch crew member holding a drowned migrant baby, during a rescue operation off the coasts of Libya, on Friday, May 27, 2016. (Christian Buttner/EIKON NORD GMBH GERMANY via AP)
The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that more than trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2010, mostly in the past two-and-a-half years.
As of Saturday, more than 2,500 have died or gone missing already in 2016, the agency says. About 1.5 million people have successfully made the dangerous journey to Europe via the Mediterranean since 2013.
About three-quarters of the arrivals have landed in Greece, with about a quarter arriving in Italy.
Italy has experienced a large increase in arrivals in recent months while Greece has seen a huge drop. That鈥檚 after a European Union agreement with Turkey to try to prevent the dangerous crossings went into effect March 20. The deal allows Europe to send all migrants who arrive illegally in Greece back to refugee camps in Turkey, while the EU takes in one legal refugee for each migrant returned.
Three-quarters of the migrants who have arrived so far in 2016 have been from war-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, according to UNHCR. About 45 per cent are men, 35 per cent are children and 20 per cent are women.
