41 migrants dead in shipwreck off coast of Italy, survivors say

Survivors tell of tragic journey from Tunisia – with more than 1,800 people having died attempting to cross from North Africa to Europe this year

Four survivors of the shipwreck wave for help (AP)

Forty-one migrants are believed to have died in a shipwreck in the central Mediterranean, according to accounts from survivors who have reached the Italian island of Lampedusa

Local public prosecutor Salvatore Vella said that four people who survived the shipwreck last week have told rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children. An investigation has been launched by officials.

The 7-metre-long boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia's Sfax, but capsized and sank after a few hours when hit by a big wave, the survivors were quoted as saying by Italian news agency Ansa. Only around a dozen are believed to have been wearing life vests.

The survivors – a 13-year-old boy, a woman and two men – arrived in Lampedusa on Wednesday, almost six days after the sinking of their boat, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Unicef and UNHCR, said in a joint statement.

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, where they shared their story.

The Italian Red Cross and Sea-Watch both said the four had survived by hanging on to life jackets or other inflatable rubber devices and then finding another empty boat at sea, on which they spent several days adrift with no food or drinking water.

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

The migrants arrived in Lampedusa exhausted and in a state of shock, and are due to be questioned by police, the prosecutor Mr Vella said.

A doctor on Lampedusa who treated the four, Dr Adrian Chiaramonte, said that the survivors had sustained “small wounds” and were suffering from dehydration, but “nothing major”.

“They said one boat saw them and kept on going. An hour later they saw a copter, then the oil tanker came” and rescued them, Dr Chiaramonte told RaiNews24, adding that the survivors reported that altogether around 15 people had rudimentary lifesavers. No bodies have been recovered.

More than 1,800 people have died attempting the crossing from North Africa to Europe so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Since 2014, more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances have been registered in the central Mediterranean, making it the most dangerous crossing in the world.

Lampedusa has for years been the first port of call for thousands of people making the treacherous journey. More than 2,000 people have arrived in recent days after being rescued by the Italian coast guard and NGO ships.

The UN agencies said migrants who set off from Tunisia in recent days faced “prohibitive weather and sea conditions”, making their journeys on unseaworthy iron boats “disproportionally dangerous”.

The coast guard had reported two shipwrecks on Sunday, saying around 30 people were missing from them. The bodies of a woman and a toddler were recovered.

The coast guard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and the two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax on Thursday.

The first vessel had 48 people onboard, of whom 43 were rescued. The second boat had been carrying 42 passengers, of whom 14 were rescued.

However, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters it was unlikely that the shipwreck experienced by the survivors was one of those two.

The UN agencies reiterated a call for governments to dedicate more resources to Mediterranean search and rescue missions – an expensive and politically sensitive endeavour for which there is little appetite in EU capitals.

Italy has seen 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to the country’s Interior Ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022. The most frequent nationalities of those arriving are Guinea, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Tunisia.

Italy’s hard-right government, led by prime minister Giorgia Meloni, has put in place a number of anti-immigration measures aimed at reducing the number of people entering the country via the sea. That includes fines of tens of thousands of euros if they do not request a port and sail to it immediately after one rescue. Boats can be granted ports in central or nothern Italy, rather than Lampedusa or Sicily, meaning longer journeys and reducing their ability to make rescues. It also stops boats from staying out at sea and making multiple rescues from boats in difficulty.

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. Last month, the EU signed a wide-ranging deal with Tunisia that is expected to be worth around €1bn (£860m). That deal includes funds to help to stop irregular migration into the bloc.

Reuters