At least 41 migrants die in a shipwreck

The four survivors, three men and one woman from the Ivory Coast and Guinea Conakry, say three children fell into the water.

A total of 41 people have died in a new shipwreck registered in the last off the Italian island of Lampedusa (southern Italy), according to the testimonies of four survivors who were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard.

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The rescued explained to the authorities that the boat had left Sfax (Tunisia) and that after about six hours of navigation the ship capsized due to a large wave and 41 migrants, including three children, fell into the sea, local media reported.

The four survivors, three men and one woman from the Ivory Coast and Guinea Conakry, are in a state of shock. After being rescued by the motor ship “Rimona” they were transferred to a Coast Guard patrol boat that disembarked in Lampedusa.

Only 15 of the migrants, who were traveling in a precarious metal boat, wore life jackets, but they drowned anyway, the migrants added in their account to the social services and mediators of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) who regularly work in the island, the closest Italian territory to Africa.

Last Saturday, two other shipwrecks were reported off Lampedusa in which 34 people died, although only three corpses could be rescued in the middle of a strong storm and it was also the 57 rescued who explained that their travel companions had fallen. Sea.

The disembarkations do not stop in Lampedusa, in whose reception center, with a capacity for 300 people, nearly 2,500 people crowded two days ago, although currently more than 1,500 after the authorities have resumed the transfer of migrants from the town to other points of the island or to the Italian peninsula.

It is expected that today some 1,100 of the 1,577 guests at the center will be transferred to the Sicilian towns of Porto Empedocle and Augusta.

According to the latest data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, so far this year and as of August 4, 92,000 migrants have landed on the Italian coast, more than double the 42,640 in the same period last year.

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