2023-08-09 09:56:34
ROME (AP) — Forty-one people were presumed dead after a migrant boat capsized near Tunis, according to Italian state television RAI, citing four survivors rescued and brought ashore Wednesday.
The four survivors were first rescued by the Malta-flagged cargo ship Rimona in the Strait of Sicily, according to RAI and the ANSA news agency. They were then transferred to an Italian coast guard ship, which took them to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
The island, which is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, is a frequent destination for migrant smugglers. Its immigration detention center has been overwhelmed several times with new arrivals this summer.
Alessandra Filograno, a spokeswoman for the Italian Red Cross, confirmed that four survivors had arrived in the center of Lampedusa on Wednesday morning: two men, a woman and an unaccompanied minor. Filograno had no further information.
Neither ANSA nor RAI indicated the source of the information, but said the four survivors, who came from the Ivory Coast and Guinea, had spoken of 41 deaths, including three children.
This summer there have been numerous shipwrecks of smuggler ships leaving Tunisia for Italy. According to the Interior Ministry, more than 93,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, more than double the 45,000 arrivals in the same period in 2022.
The most frequent nationalities were Guinea, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Tunisia.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose conservative government includes the anti-immigrant League party, has called on the European Union to join her efforts to persuade Tunisia to go after the smuggling operations, but the ships keep sailing.
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