2023-09-30 09:21:41
Published on September 30, 2023 at 11:21.
Some 150 passengers, more than half of them migrants, were evacuated from a ferry linking the Italian island of Lampedusa to Sicily on Saturday morning after a fire broke out in the engine room, guards said. Italian coasts. The ferry which linked Lampedusa to Porto Empedocle, in the south of Sicily, had 177 people on board – 150 passengers including 83 migrants, and 27 crew members – the coast guard said.
All passengers on the ferry were able to be evacuated by boat to Sicily or Lampedusa, again according to the coast guard. The ferry, out of service but still with its crew on board, must be towed to a home port, they added.
Also read: More than 2,500 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean this year
Resumption of arrivals
A large number of migrants arrive in Lampedusa after the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean they attempt to reach Europe, before being evacuated to other accommodation centers.
After more than a week of calm linked to bad weather, arrivals of migrants by sea resumed on Friday on the Italian island. Between June and August, at least 990 people were shipwrecked in the central Mediterranean, three times more than during the previous summer, according to a recent UNICEF count.
Read also: Faced with migration, a disunited Europe
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