41 migrants missing after new Mediterranean shipwreck

Forty-one migrants, including three children, are feared dead after a shipwreck last week in the Mediterranean, UN agencies said, citing four survivors brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa Wednesday.

Their metal boat overturned in bad weather during the night of Thursday to Friday after setting off from the Tunisian port of Sfax, said a joint statement from the UN agencies for refugees, children and migration.

The survivors — a 13-year-old boy on his own, a woman and two men — were rescued by a merchant ship and brought to Lampedusa by the Italian coastguard, they said.

In a separate statement, the Italian Red Cross, which manages the migrant reception centre on the island, said the four were generally in good health.

They said they were from Ivory Coast and Guinea, and were unrelated to the missing migrants, it said.

The four managed to survive the shipwreck by floating on inner tubes, before reaching another boat at sea.

The shipwreck is one of several deadly incidents reported in recent days after a period of bad weather.

Officials reported on Monday that 16 migrants died in shipwrecks off the coasts of Tunisia and Western Sahara.

And on Sunday, the UN’s migration agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said at least 30 people were missing after two shipwrecks off Lampedusa.

The tiny island, located just 90 miles (around 145 kilometres) from Tunisia, is the first port of call for many migrants heading from North Africa to Europe.

But many of them do not survive, making the Central Mediterranean migrant crossing the world’s deadliest.

More than 1,800 people died attempting the route so far this year, according to IOM figures from Friday — more than double the fatalities in the same period last year.

IOM press officer Flavio Di Giacomo said Wednesday that the migrants who died in the latest tragedy would have had little chance given the bad weather.

“Sub-Saharan migrants (leaving from Tunisia) are forced to use these low-cost iron boats which break after 20 or 30 hours of navigation,” he told AFP.

“With this kind of sea, these boats capsize easily. It is very likely that there are many more shipwrecks than those we know about, that is the real fear.”

He said people traffickers who send migrants to sea in such conditions are “more criminal than usual… totally without scruples”.

An investigation into Sunday’s shipwrecks has been opened in Agrigento, on the Italian island of Sicily.

Agrigento’s chief of police, Emanuele Ricifari said the traffickers would have known bad weather was forecast.

“Whoever allowed them, or forced them, to leave with this sea is an unscrupulous criminal lunatic,” he told Italian media at the weekend.

He added that it had been “sending them to slaughter with this sea”.

Almost 94,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, according to interior ministry figures — up from almost 45,000 in the same period last year.

In their statement on Wednesday, the UN agencies renewed their call for “coordinated search and rescue mechanisms” in the Central Mediterranean, and for countries to increase resources to better meet “their responsibilities”.

They also called for more safe legal routes for migrants and refugees into Europe, “to avoid people having to resort to dangerous journeys in search of safety and protection”.