Forty-one dead in migrant shipwreck in Mediterranean
Four survivors tell rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children
09 August 2023 - 17:04
byAlvise Armellini
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Rome — Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck in the central Mediterranean, the Italian news agency Ansa reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.
The boat set off on Thursday from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hotspot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.
The survivors — three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea — said they were rescued by a cargo ship and transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel. The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying about 30 people were missing from them.
The coast guard 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 on Thursday.
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 seen about 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Forty-one dead in migrant shipwreck in Mediterranean
Four survivors tell rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children
Rome — Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck in the central Mediterranean, the Italian news agency Ansa reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.
The boat set off on Thursday from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hotspot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.
The survivors — three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea — said they were rescued by a cargo ship and transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel. The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying about 30 people were missing from them.
The coast guard 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 on Thursday.
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 seen about 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
Reuters
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