Two migrants who were among the estimated 800 who died in the recent shipwreck tragedy have been “tentatively” identified, Times of Malta has learnt.

Theirs were among the 24 unidentified bodies that were last week transported to Malta following a tragedy which jolted Europe into tackling the crisis.

Pathologist David Grima, who conducted autopsies on the bodies, said the health authorities had located identity documents of two of the migrants stowed away among their personal belongings.

The certificates, which included passport-style photographs, re-sembled Eritrean identity cards and are believed to have belonged to two migrants in their early 20s who were among those taken to Mater Dei Hospital.

The shipwreck on the night of April 18 is believed to have been the biggest sea tragedy since World War II, taking the number of migrants who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean to 1,750.

Dr Grima said the information had been passed on to the police, who were in touch with international law enforcement agencies to try to verify the documents’ authenticity. Once this is done, efforts will be made to contact the migrants’ families, he added.

“Although these documents were found, we can’t be certain that these are their real identities as migrants often carry false documentation. That said it is still a good first sign,” he said, standing beside the steel autopsy table of the hospital morgue.

Dr Grima was reluctant to reveal the names of the two migrants, as the tragedy is still the subject of a magisterial inquiry.

However, he did reveal that some mourners in Malta had already made contact with the hospital. Members of the local migrant community visited the morgue on the day a funeral service was held for the 24 migrants.

The mourners had asked to see the bodies, as they were expecting loved ones to make the crossing. Their request, however, was turned down, as the bodies had already been sealed for burial when the request was made.

Dr Grima, who has worked in the morgue for the past 25 years, said such requests were common and migrants often asked to take a look through the bodies in the hope of finding missing relatives.

He also said that the hospital authorities had collected physical descriptions of the migrants as well as DNA samples. These would be handed over to international NGOs such as the Red Cross, which have databases of similar information to try and identify the deceased migrants.