Forty-one migrants die in shipwreck off Italian coast

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Forty-one migrants have died in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa after setting sail from Tunisia, according to survivors.

The boat had departed last week from the Tunisian city of Sfax, a popular hotspot for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea and reach Europe. It capsized about six hours into the journey, according to a woman and three men from Ivory Coast and Guinea who managed to swim to an abandoned boat where they were stranded for days, Italian news agency Ansa reported.

In July Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni championed a deal between the EU and Tunisia to crack down on smugglers and curb the numbers of departures, but migrant flows continue to increase. 

Since the beginning of the year, more than 90,000 irregular migrants have reached Italy by sea, nearly double as many as in the same period last year, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior. Two-thirds of this year’s migration wave set off from Tunisia.

The four survivors told rescuers that the 41 other passengers, including three children, perished in the shipwreck. The migrants were rescued on Tuesday by a cargo ship under the Maltese flag, after being spotted by an EU coast guard plane. They were transferred to Lampedusa on Wednesday morning.

Separately, the Italian coast guard carried out a rescue operation on Saturday after detecting two shipwrecks south of Lampedusa. They managed to save 57 people, but about 30 migrants were still missing. Two dead bodies, a woman and a child, were recovered. 

The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.