Africa-Press – Nigeria. Six people have died and 40 others are missing after a boat carrying migrants sank on Tuesday night 22.5 kilometres east of the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to Italian media.
An Italian patrol from the Guardia di Finanza intervened after the alarm was raised by the European agency Frontex and upon arrival found the vessel sunk, but still managed to rescue 10 migrants and locate six fatalities.
However, survivors said there were at least 40 missing.
The boat had left Sfax, Tunisia, on Sunday night and, after being rescued 22.5 kilometres east of Lampedusa, on the islet of Lampione, the survivors were taken to the reception centre on the small Italian island, the closest to the African coast.
The Guardia Finanza (National Police) has begun searching for the missing people and today the 10 victims of the shipwreck — six men and four women — will be interviewed by the police, who will try to reconstruct what happened more accurately.
After the 10 shipwrecked people, another 40 migrants (nine women and two minors) arrived on the island from Ivory Coast, Senegal, Guinea and Malaysia and also reported having left Sfax.
On Tuesday, five disembarkations were recorded on Lampedusa, with a total of 213 migrants, with 230 people currently in the centre.
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