African migrants on raft bound for Europe as it emerges 20,000 may have died in past two decades

 These are the shocking images of hundreds of migrants making the dangerous journey from Africa to Europe cramped into a tiny raft.
Humanitarian agencies believe around 20,000 lives have been lost in the last 20 years, as men, women and children cross the Mediterranean sea to escape persecution in their home countries.
The incredible footage released by the Italian Navy shows the risks these individuals take as they take on the perilous 70-mile stretch of water between the north African coast and the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
More than 30,000 migrants arrived in Italy and Malta in the first nine months of 2013, compared with 15,000 in all of 2012, according to the U.N. refugee agency, with many fleeing dictatorship in Eritrea and civil war in Syria.
Thousands then move into northern Europe's
larger and more organised immigrant communities.
'They do know that they are risking their lives, but it is a rational decision,' said Maurizio Albahari, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.
Because they know for a fact they will be facing death or persecution at home - whatever remains of their home, or assuming there is a home in the first place.'
'What drives them is the hope that they'll have a better life in Europe for themselves and their children. It's either perish or go somewhere,' he added.
In the last two weeks, two boats have capsized while making the journey, leaving nearly 400 people dead.
In the second case, the Italian coast guard said it received a satellite phone call from the boat that it was in distress and was able to locate it based on the satellite coordinates.
A Maltese aircraft was sent up and reported that the boat had capsized and 'numerous' people were in the water. The aircraft dropped a life raft, and a patrol boat soon arrived at the scene.
Late Friday, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat reported that 27 bodies had been recovered, three of them children.
He said 150 survivors were rescued aboard a Maltese ship while another 56 had been picked up by an Italian navy vessel with a further 15 on board a fishing boat.
The incident occurred as recovery operations continued off Lampedusa for victims of the Oct. 3 shipwreck, where 339 people drowned.
One of the victims was said to be a newborn baby, recovered with its umbilical cord still attached.
The recent deaths prompted renewed calls for the European Union to do more to better patrol the southern Mediterranean and prevent such tragedies - and for countries like Libya to crack down on smuggling operations.
'We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a cemetery,' Muscat told a news conference in Valletta, the Maltese capital.
Last week the politician claimed there was an ‘unsustainable’ number of migrants arriving on Malta's shores.
The Mediterranean island, with a population of just 400,000, has become the landing point for many of the migrants seeking a new life in Europe.
Lampedusa is the destination of choice for smugglers who usually charge more than £800 a head and cram the migrants onto boats that routinely run into trouble and require rescue.
Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012.
Once in Italy, the migrants are screened for asylum and often sent back home if they don't qualify.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, many of the arrivals were considered 'economic migrants.'
But many of the latest arrivals are fleeing persecution and conflict in places such as Syria and and qualify for refugee status, U.N. officials say.
During a visit to Lampedusa this week, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso promised Italy £25 million in EU funds for Italian authorities to provide better care for newly arrived immigrants.
Source: dailymail