Four Bangladeshi nationals, all hailing from Faridpur, have been  missing since the deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday, causing  extreme anxiety and worry to their families. The missing Bangladeshi nationals are -Al Amin Matubbar, 20, son of Mostafa Matubbar, Mahfuz Molla, 22, son of Sobahan Molla, Nazmul Molla 23, son of Esken Molla and Akramul Bepari, 27, son of Seken Bepari- all are resident of Nagarkanda upazila of the district, said their families. All the youths left the country to go to Italy illegally spending Tk 8 to 10 lakh  through brokers, they said. Thirty people feared drowned after a boat from Libya capsized in bad weather on Sunday. A total 17 others were rescued in the shipwreck incident and brought ashore by the Italian authorities on Monday, reports Reuters. Those rescued, who were originally from Bangladesh  were taken to the Sicilian town of Pozzallo, Italian newswire ANSA reported. Chameli Begum, 38, mother of missing Al-Amin Matubbar, said that her son left the country two months ago to go to Italy. He boarded a trawler from Libya on Thursday after travelling many countries. Locals alleged  Murad Fakir and four others- Farhad Fakir of Mashaujan village, Liton Sardar and Abul Hossain of Bilgobindapur village and Quader Matubbar of Basagari area, are involved in human trafficking . Kazi Abul Kalam, Dangi Union Parishad chairman, said that Murad is a human trafficker who has sent at least 200 youths abroad illegally. Miraj Hossain, Officer-in-Charge of Nagarkanda Police Station, said that no complaint has been lodged yet regarding this matter.

The back-to-back shipwrecks of migrant smuggling boats off Greece has once again put the spotlight on the dangers of the Mediterranean migration route, the risks migrants and refugees are willing to take and the political infighting that has thwarted a safe European response to people fleeing war, poverty and climate change. Here’s a look at the migration situation across the Mediterranean Sea: WHAT HAPPENED TO TWO SMUGGLERS’ BOATS OFF GREECE? Bodies floated amid splintered wreckage off a Greek island on Thursday as the death toll from separate sinkings of two migrant boats rose to 22, with about a dozen still missing. The vessels went down hundreds of miles apart, in one case prompting a dramatic overnight rescue effort as island residents and firefighters pulled shipwrecked migrants to safety up steep cliffs. The Greek shipwrecks came just days after Italy commemorated the ninth anniversary of one of the deadliest Mediterranean shipwrecks in recent memory, the Oct. 3, 2013 capsizing of a migrant ship off Lampedusa, Sicily, in which 368 people died. WHAT ARE THE TRENDS IN MEDITERRANEAN MIGRANT ARRIVALS? So far this year, the International Organization of Migration has recorded around 109,000 “irregular” arrivals to the Mediterranean countries of Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta by land or sea. This has made immigration a hot political topic in those European Union nations. U.N. refugee officials note that overall numbers of migrants seeking to come to Europe this way has decreased over the years, to an average of around 120,000 annually. They call that a relatively “manageable” number, especially compared to the 7.4 million Ukrainians who have fled their homeland this year to escape Russia’s invasion, and were welcomed by European countries. “We’ve seen how quickly and how rapidly a response was mounted to deal with that situation in a very humane and commendable way,” said Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency in Geneva. “If we can see that happen very concretely in this situation, why can’t it be applied for 120,000 people that are coming across to Europe on a yearly basis?” Others see Europe’s harsh response to Mediterranean migrants, who often come from Africa, and its welcoming of Slavic Ukrainian migrants as racist. HOW DANGEROUS IS THE MEDITERRANEAN? Read: 13 Bangladeshis rescued in Mediterranean return home So far this year the IOM has reported 1,522 dead or missing migrants in the Mediterranean. Overall, the IOM says 24,871 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, with the real number believed to be even higher given the number of shipwrecks that never get reported. “The voyage toward Italy has been confirmed to be the most dangerous,” said the ISMU foundation in Italy, which conducts research on migration trends. The Central Mediterranean migration route that takes migrants from Libya or Tunisia north to Europe is the deadliest known migration route in the world, accounting for more than half of the reported deaths in the Mediterranean that IOM has tracked since 2014. The route has Italy as its prime destination. WHAT ARE THE DEADLIEST KNOWN SMUGGLING SHIPWRECKS? On April 18, 2015, the Mediterranean’s deadliest known shipwreck in living memory occurred when an overcrowded fishing boat collided 77 nautical miles off Libya with a freighter that was trying to come to its rescue. Only 28 people survived. At first it was feared the hull held the remains of 700 people. Forensic experts who set out to try to identify all the dead concluded in 2018 that there were originally 1,100 people on board. On Oct. 3, 2013, a trawler packed with more than 500 people, many from Eritrea and Ethiopia, caught fire and capsized within sight of an uninhabited islet off Italy’s southern island of Lampedusa. Local fishermen rushed to try to help save lives. In the end, 155 survived and 368 people died. One week later, a shipwreck occurred on Oct 11, 2013, further out at sea, 60 miles south of Lampedusa in what has become known in Italy as the “slaughter of children.” In all, more than 260 people died, among them 60 children. The Italian newsweekly L’Espresso in 2017 published the audio recordings of the migrants’ desperate calls for help and Italian and Maltese authorities seemingly delaying the rescue. WHAT ARE OTHER MEDITERRANEAN MIGRATION ROUTES TO EUROPE? The Western Mediterranean route is used by migrants seeking to reach Spain from Morocco or Algeria. The Eastern Mediterranean route, where the shipwrecks occurred this week off Greece, has traditionally been used by Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and other non-African migrants who flee first to Turkey and then try to reach Greece or other European destinations. Read: 49 Bangladeshi migrants rescued from Mediterranean Greece was a key transit point for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entering the EU in 2015-16, many fleeing wars in Iraq and Syria, though the numbers dropped sharply after the EU and Turkey reached a deal in 2016 to limit smugglers. Greece has since toughened its borders and built a steel wall along its land border with Turkey. Greece has also been accused by Turkey and some migration experts of pushing back migrants, a charge it denies. For its part, Greece says Turkey has failed to stop smugglers active on its shoreline and has been using migrants to apply political pressure to the whole European Union. HOW HAS MIGRATION DIVIDED THE EU’S 27 NATIONS? Mediterranean countries have for years complained that they have been left to bear the brunt of welcoming and processing migrants, and have long demanded other European countries step up and take them in. Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European nations refused an EU plan to share the burdens of carrying for the migrants. Human rights groups have condemned how the EU in recent years has outsourced migrant rescues to the Libyan coast guard, which brings the migrants back to horrific camps on land where many are beaten, raped and abused.   “Over the years, the routes have changed but not the tragedies,” said the Sant’Egidio Community as it commemorated the 2013 Lampedusa anniversary this week. Working with other Christian groups, the Catholic charity has brought more than 5,000 refugees to Italy via “humanitarian corridors” and has called for more safe passages to be organized so migrants don’t have to risk dangerous Mediterranean crossings with smugglers.

Tunisia navy has rescued 49 undocumented Bangladeshi migrants from the Mediterranean Sea. The Bangladesh nationals boarded the oil platform "Didon" Thursday after their boat broke down 80km off the coastal town of Zarzis, close to the Libyan border, according to Tunis Afrique Presse. The migrants, aged between 16 and 50, were heading towards Europe and had set sail from the Libyan coast on July 5, the Tunisian defence ministry said.  Also read: Bangladeshi migrants among 43 missing as boat sinks off Tunisia "The Bangladesh nationals were transferred to the El Ktef seaport in Ben Guerdane city where they will be handed over to National Guard," it added. Several migrant boats sank recently while trying to reach Europe as more people are now trying to make the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to the continent amid warmer summer weather. Also read: 20 migrants dead off Tunisia after boat sinks, more missing Between June 26 and July 3, Tunisian naval authorities fished out 49 bodies of migrants and saved 78 after four boats sank off the coast of Sfax city. On July 3, at least 43 migrants, including Bangladeshis, went missing while 84 were rescued after a boat heading towards Europe drowned off the coast of Tunisia.

A giant backhoe and a squadron of tugboats look minuscule against the cargo ship’s bulk, demonstrating the enormity of the challenge at hand: freeing the wedged, skyscraper-sized container ship that has blocked the entire width of the Suez Canal and created a major traffic jam on one of the world’s most crucial trade routes. The tugs and diggers toiled on Thursday as over 150 vessels carrying goods to destinations across the world on tight schedules remained trapped on either end of the canal, which links the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Over its 150-year history, Egypt’s Suez Canal has seen wars and crises — but nothing quite like the stranding of the Ever Given. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? That remains murky. The vessel entered the canal from the Red Sea on Tuesday morning and ran aground 45 minutes later. The ship’s operator and Egyptian officials blamed winds gusting as much as 50 kilometers per hour (30 miles per hour), along with a sandstorm sweeping the area. Cargo ships have grown in recent years to take on more containers as fuel prices have risen because big boats burn less fuel per container moved. Some have wondered if the ultra-large size of the Ever Given was a factor. While the supersize of ships can increase their risk of running aground in the Suez Canal, boats just as big buffeted by winds just as strong have passed through the waterway without incident before. Instead, it’s likely that “a combination of factors” was at play, said Ian Woods, a marine cargo lawyer and partner with the firm Clyde & Co. “There’s the exposure to the elements, potential for a loss of power, potential for steering problems,” Woods said. “We’d expect a full investigation.” The obstruction could prove embarrassing for Egypt, where the waterway long has been a symbol of national pride. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi poured $8.2 billion into a lavish expansion of the canal that was unveiled in 2015. However, the Ever Given got stuck just south of that new section. HOW WILL THEY FIX THIS? So far, dredgers and tugboats haven’t been able to free the ship. An expert salvage team, whose job it is to respond to boat-related disasters, flew from the Netherlands to the canal on Thursday to join the efforts. Already, it seems the ship’s massive weight, some 220,000 tons, could make it impossible to dislodge and float. To lighten the load, the team says it may have to remove at least some of the ship’s containers and drain the vessel of the water serving as ballast before further dredging the area and then trying again to nudge the ship using tugboats. Officials had indicated initially they didn’t want to do that because the unloading itself could take days or weeks. WHY DOES IT MATTER? Over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil, passes through the canal. After the blockage, the price of international benchmark Brent crude shot up some 3% to $63 a barrel. Goods passing through the canal are typically moving from east to west. In addition to oil, liquified natural gas from the Persian Gulf and furniture, clothes and supermarket basics from China use the canal to avoid taking a circuitous 5,000-kilometer (3,1000-mile) route around Africa. Shipping journal Lloyd’s List estimates that the closed waterway is tying up billions of dollars of goods each day the canal is closed — at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is already causing demand in consumer goods to surge. Not only will deliveries be delayed, but the jam also prevents the return of empty containers back to Asia, exacerbating a container shortage caused by the pandemic’s disruptions to shipping. “It’s almost like a ketchup bottle,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of SeaIntelligence Consulting. “The longer this lasts, the higher risk that we are going to see major congestion problems in the European ports.” WHAT IS THE WORLD’S REACTION? While the real-world consequences of the jam are serious, many also noted the absurdity of the situation in a seemingly endless flood of social media memes. In one viral post, the gigantic ship was captioned “my tasks,” and the comparatively puny backhoe “me, dutifully chipping away at my tasks.” In another, the boat was “your first draft” and the backhoe “editors.”

A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday was seeking a port of safety for 265 migrants its crew rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in the last few days.