Dozens dead in migrant shipwreck off Italy’s Lampedusa island

At least 41 people have died in a migrant shipwreck off Italy’s Lampedusa island.

Ansa, a local news agency, reported that four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers the boat had set off from Sfax in Tunisia, a hot spot in the migration crisis.

It was carrying 45 people, including three children, when it sank a few hours into the journey. In total, 41 people died.

The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – were rescued by a cargo ship in the Straits of Sicily and then transferred on to an Italian coastguard vessel, which brought them to Lampedusa.

The coastguard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear if the incident was linked to two shipwrecks that the coastguard had reported on Sunday, saying about 30 people were missing from them.

The coastguard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax last Thursday.

The distance between Sfax and Lampedusa is about 130km.

Lampedusa is Italy’s southernmost island. It has become a key European entry point for migrants, mainly originating from Libya, since the early 2000s.

Last year the Italian navy relocated 600 asylum seekers from the tiny island, which is home to about 6,000 people, after its refugee identification centre became overwhelmed with new arrivals and photos circulated of filthy conditions.

Separately, Tunisian authorities said on Monday that they had recovered 11 bodies from a shipwreck near Sfax on Sunday, with 44 migrants still missing from that sinking. Italy has registered about 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to Interior Ministry data last updated on Monday, compared with 44,700 in the same period of 2022. – Web Desk