11 people dead and dozens missing after two shipwrecks off coast of Italy

At least 11 people have died and dozens are missing after two ships were wrecked off the coast of southern Italy.

A rescue ship run by a German aid group picked up 51 people, thought to be migrants, from a sinking wooden vessel in the first of two shipwrecks.

The RESQSHIP group said two of the 51 were unconscious and had to be "cut free with an axe".

Ten bodies were found trapped on the wooden ship's flooded lower deck near the island of Lampedusa, the organisation added.

"Our thoughts are with their families. We are angry and sad," it wrote on X.

Those on board came from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Organisation for Migration and UNICEF said in a joint statement.

The second shipwreck took place about 125 miles east of the Italian region of Calabria, after a yacht that had set off from Turkey eight days earlier caught fire and overturned, UN agencies said.

A woman is understood to have died after falling into the water.

At least 12 migrants were rescued, the Italian coastguard said.

Migrants involved in the second shipwreck came from Iran, Iraq and Syria, agencies added.

More than 50 people are still missing from the vessel wrecked near Calabria.

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