Italy, Tunisia and Malta are withholding information about the true death toll from migration shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean from human rights organisations, according to an AP report[8]. The beginning of 2026 has been the deadliest start[9] to a year in the Mediterranean since the UN began keeping track in 2014. Nearly 700 people have died. But phone calls from people looking for missing relatives, bodies washing ashore, and other clues suggest there have been numerous "invisible" shipwrecks and the true toll is significantly higher. (TNH[11])
