Survivors reported 41 people died in the latest shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily, sources said Wednesday. This is the latest in a long series of shipwrecks off Lampedusa island.
The four survivors, three men and a woman, were saved by a Bulk Carrier, the Rimona. They were then transferred to a Coast Guard vessel that took them to the Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.
They said three children were among the victims of the shipwreck. Neither the Rimona nor the Coast Guard boat came across any of the victim’s bodies.
The survivors, who come from Ivory Coast and Guinea, are thought to have been in the water for more than a day before being rescued. The boat, which sank, departed from Sfax in Tunisia.
There has been a big rise in the number of people attempting the crossing from North Africa to Italy this year.
Thousands die in Med this year
According to IOM data, over 2,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean so far in 2023. Most of those cases were on the Central Mediterranean route.
Around 30 people are missing feared dead after two shipwrecks at the weekend off Lampedusa. An attractive island, it is Italy’s southernmost island and often the destination boats carrying migrants and refugees from North Africa head for.