41 migrants die, 4 survive in shipwreck in central Mediterranean: Report

Forty-one migrants have died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, said a report by  Reuters citing Italian authorities on Wednesday.

According to the report, 4 survivors of the accident were taken to the island of Lampedusa. The boat was reportedly carrying 45 people.

An investigation by local public prosecutor Salvatore Vella’s office has been opened into the incident. 

According to Italian news agency Ansa citing the survivors, the 7-metre-long boat set off on Thursday morning from Sfax in Tunisia, but capsized and sank after a few hours when hit by a big wave.

“The Sea-Watch charity rescue group said one of its surveillance planes spotted them being rescued by a cargo ship. They were then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel and disembarked in Lampedusa,” said the Reuters report.

“They (survivors) said they were among the few aboard (the sunken boat) with a life jacket, and (after the shipwreck) they remained in the water until they found another empty boat,” Sea-Watch said in a statement.

The survivors, who arrived in Lampedusa exhausted and in a state of shock, will be questioned by police, said the Reuters report.

According to Italy’s interior ministry data, the country, a major route into Europe for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other migrants, has seen a rise in number of migrant boats this year. 

Around 93,750 migrants have arrived by sea so far in Italy as compared to about 44,950 arrivals in the same period of 2022. 

The Reuters report citing a source said, “it was unlikely that the shipwreck experienced by the survivors was one of two the coast guard had reported on Sunday.”

The Italian coast guard had said they rescued 57 people and recovered two bodies.

Media reports have said that at least one of the sunken boats had also set off from Sfax on Thursday.