More than 40 people are missing after a migrant boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the UN said, reports RTE.
Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR’s representative in Italy, said the crash happened on Thursday and that at least one newborn was among those missing.
Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the UN migration agency IOM, said yesterday that the ship left Sfax in Tunisia and was carrying 46 migrants from Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.
He said the boat sank due to strong winds and strong waves. “Some survivors were taken to Lampedusa and others were brought back to Tunisia. Among those missing were seven women and a minor. The survivors are all adult men”, reports RTE.
He explained that this was due to sub-Saharan Africans fleeing discrimination in Tunisia.
“It is unacceptable to continue counting the dead at the gates of Europe”, Cardoletti wrote on Twitter, referring to deadly shipwrecks of migrant boats which have already occurred in Italy, Greece and Spain. A coordinated and shared rescue mechanism at sea between states is now also a matter of conscience,” reports RTE.
Mr. Di Giacomo also emphasizes the fragility of poorly moored boats that sink at the first damage.
Located about 145 km off the coast of Tunisia, the southern Italian island of Lampedusa is the main gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
More than 46,000 people out of a total of 105,000 arrived in Italy last year, according to UNHCR.
Nearly 800 migrants have landed on the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa in the last 24 hours.
The number of shipwrecks carrying migrants has increased in recent months, with the number of migrants entering the European Union via the Central Mediterranean “more than doubling” in 2023, reports RTE.
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