UN: Mediterranean death toll tops record 5,000 this year

GENEVA – U.N. agencies says at least 90 people are missing and feared dead after two shipwrecks off Italy, raising the estimated death toll among migrants on the Mediterranean this year to at least 5,000 — a new record.

Spokesman Joel Millman of the International Organization for Migration said Friday that 63 survivors from the capsizing of a rubber dinghy said there were originally between 120 and 140 people on board.

An estimated 80 people survived another sinking of a rubber dinghy that came to light Thursday, and another 40 people were feared dead. He did not immediately have further details.

Also at the U.N. news briefing in Geneva, spokesman William Spindler of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees' office reported that about 100 people were believed to have died in the recent Mediterranean incidents.