
Migrant deaths in Mediterranean reach highest level in 6 years
CBSN
The number of migrant deaths in the Central Mediterranean in the first three months of 2023 reached their highest point in six years, according to a new report Wednesday from the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In the first quarter of the year, the IOM documented 441 deaths of migrants attempting to cross what the agency calls "the world's most dangerous maritime crossing." It's the highest fatality count for a three-month period since the first quarter of 2017, when 742 deaths were recorded, according to IOM numbers.
Every year thousands of migrants, in sometimes rickety and overcrowded smuggler boats, attempt to reach Europe's southern shores from North Africa.

Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil who made a record-breaking parachute jump from the stratosphere in 2012, died Thursday in a paragliding accident in Italy, a local mayor confirmed. Firefighters who responded to the scene said they found a paraglider that had crashed into the side of a swimming pool in the city of Porto Sant Elpidio, on central Italy's eastern coast.

Baghdad — A fire at a newly opened mall in eastern Iraq's Wasit province killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The nation's Interior Ministry said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the blaze that broke out late Wednesday in the city of al-Kut.

Moscow — An American who spied on Ukrainian troops to help Moscow's military offensive in the country has been granted Russian citizenship, Moscow-installed authorities said Tuesday. Daniel Martindale spent two years in Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, transmitting coordinates of military facilities to Russia's secret services, according to reports in Russian state media.