41 migrants feared dead as boat capsizes off the coast of Italy
Global News
Calls poured in for Europe to develop safe and legal pathways of migration to prevent future deaths. Thousands of migrants have already made the dangerous journey this year.
Forty-one people are believed dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Tunisia in rough seas, the Italian Red Cross and rescue groups reported, citing four survivors who were rescued and brought to land Wednesday.
The survivors reported having left Sfax, Tunisia, on a metal boat with a total of 45 people on Aug. 3. About six hours into their voyage, a huge wave overturned the vessel, RAI state television reported.
The Red Cross said in a statement that the four survived using inner tubes and managed to climb onto another empty vessel nearby, evidence of the large number of boats setting out from Sfax and the rough seas that hit the area in recent days, causing several other capsizings too.
Photos released by the Sea-Watch humanitarian rescue group taken by its monitoring aircraft showed the four survivors waving for help from the boat and making their way to a commercial tanker, the Maltese-flagged Rimona. The migrants rescued by the Rimona were then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel which brought them to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday, said Sea-Watch’s Paul Wagner.
European Union border agency Frontex said that it had spotted a boat adrift in the Libyan search and rescue region and “informed all national rescue coordination centers in the region” as well as a mayday call given it was an emergency. Sea-Watch flew to the location, spotted the vessel and informed the closest merchant vessel, which was the Rimona, Wagner said.
According to the GPS location shared by Sea-Watch, the survivors were spotted inside the Libyan search and rescue zone around 66 kilometers (40 miles) from Tunisia and about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Lampedusa.
The International Organization of Migration said that the shipwreck brings to more than 1,800 the number of people dead and missing in the central Mediterranean, the most active and dangerous migration route in the world.
The Red Cross said the conditions of the four survivors, being cared for on Lampedusa, were good and that they would be transferred to the Italian mainland soon. The group said that three of the four claim to be minors, while the fourth is an adult male, all from Ivory Coast and Guinea. U.N. agencies, however, reported there was only one minor among them.
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