Six migrants die, 40 missing after Mediterranean shipwreck

Rome — At least six migrants have died and 40 more were missing after a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa, a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

The Italian coastguard said separately it intervened after being alerted to a rubber dinghy in distress on Tuesday, and found 10 survivors and six bodies. The coastguard said search and rescue efforts were continuing on Wednesday.

Bad weather is making operations more difficult and the coastguard said it was being supported by aircraft supplied by the army and the police, as well as Frontex, the EU’s border agency.

A UNHCR spokesperson said survivors told rescuers that many among a group of 56 migrants — from Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali — fell overboard in bad weather a few hours after setting off from the Tunisian city of Sfax.

The rescued migrants were being assisted in Lampedusa by the UNHCR and its partner agency the International Rescue Committee (IRC), while the Italian Red Cross was providing psychological support, the spokesperson said.

Lampedusa sits in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily. It is a first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the EU from North Africa and is one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings.

More than 66,600 migrants arrived in Italy by sea last year, fewer than half of the 2023 figure, and about 9,000 have reached Italian shores so far this year, according to figures from the Italian interior ministry.

Reuters