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Forty-one migrants have died in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa after setting sail from Tunisia, in keeping with survivors.
The boat had departed final week from the Tunisian metropolis of Sfax, a preferred hotspot for migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and attain Europe. It capsized about six hours into the journey, in keeping with a lady and three males from Ivory Coast and Guinea who managed to swim to an deserted boat the place they had been stranded for days, Italian information company 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 exits, however migrant flows proceed to extend.
For the reason that starting of the 12 months, greater than 90,000 irregular migrants have reached Italy by sea, almost double as many as in the identical interval final 12 months, in keeping with the Italian Ministry of the Inside. Two-thirds of this 12 months’s migration wave set off from Tunisia.
The 4 survivors instructed rescuers that the 41 different passengers, together with three kids, perished within the shipwreck. The migrants had been rescued on Tuesday by a cargo ship below the Maltese flag, after being noticed by an EU coast guard airplane. They had been transferred to Lampedusa on Wednesday morning.
Individually, the Italian coast guard carried out a rescue operation on Saturday after detecting two shipwrecks south of Lampedusa. They managed to save lots of 57 individuals, however about 30 migrants had been nonetheless lacking. Two lifeless our bodies, a lady and a toddler, had been recovered.
The coast guard didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
