Up to 380 people may have drowned last week trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea during Cyclone Harry, the Italian coastguard said. The cyclone hit southern Italy and Malta with fierce waves. Maltese officials confirmed a shipwreck on Friday that left 50 dead. Only one man survived. He was rescued after 24 hours at sea, holding on to wreckage. The man said he believed everyone else on the boat, which left Tunisia on January 20, died, according to Alarm Phone, a sea rescue hotline. In another tragedy, one-year-old twin girls from Guinea are believed to have drowned near the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. Their overcrowded boat was battered by the storm, the Italy unit for Unicef’s migrant response said. The Italian coastguard has been searching for eight vessels launched from Tunisia's port city of Sfax in the past 10 days despite dangerous seas. Italy’s interior ministry reported 66,296 migrants arrived by boat in 2025, a small drop from the previous year but still half the number in 2023. During that year, Italy's far-right government tightened deals with Libya and Tunisia to stop the migrant flow. Fewer NGO rescue ships now operate after the Italian government imposed fines and rules forcing rescued migrants to disembark at distant ports. Despite these strict measures, many risk the tough sea journey from North Africa to Europe. Italy is a main entry point on the central Mediterranean route, one of the world’s most perilous sea crossings. Since 2014, the UN’s International Organization for Migration records at least 25,600 deaths or disappearances in this crossing. Most incidents involved boats from Tunisia or Libya.