Lampedusa: ‘Dozens’ of migrants killed in shipwreck off Italian island
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Forty-one migrants have been killed in a shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa in Italy, according to local media reports.
The ANSA news agency cited accounts from survivors of the shipwreck, who told rescuers they were on a boat that had set off from Sfax in Tunisia, which sank on its way to Italy.
The survivors said the boat, which was carrying 45 passengers, capsized and sank after only a few hours.
A large wave apparently flipped the vessel, causing everyone on board to be thrown into the sea.
The survivors, three men and a woman from the Ivory Coast and Guinea, added they were rescued by a cargo ship and transferred to an Italian coast guard boat.
Three children were among the dead, they told ANSA.
They added no other bodies were found by their rescuers, as they were picked up some distance away from the wreck site.
It comes only days after two boats capsized in the same area, prompting a rescue operation of more than 55 people.
It is not clear if the incidents are linked.
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On Sunday, another 11 bodies were recovered from a shipwreck near Sfax, with more than 40 people still missing from that boat.
More than 93,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, compared with 44,700 in the same period a year before, the country’s interior ministry said.
