More than 1,000 refugees have arrived on the island of Lampedusa since Easter Sunday. 36 people, including eight women and one minor, were rescued by a Coast Guard vessel on Monday night. The seven-meter boat had left Tunisia. On board were people from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Guinea.
On Easter Sunday, 26 boats with a total of 974 people arrived in Lampedusa. On Saturday, 17 boats with 679 people landed on the island between Tunisia and Sicily. As of Monday, there were 1,883 refugees in the island’s hotspot. Some of them will be taken to Sicily by ferry on Monday.
Two dead and 20 missing after sinking refugee boat
The bodies of two refugees were recovered on Sunday by the NGO ship Resqship and taken to Lampedusa. Before that, the crew of the rescue vessel had rescued about two dozen people who had been shipwrecked in Maltese waters. The crew recovered 22 survivors and two bodies. Several people are reported missing after the boat they were traveling on sank, but their numbers are unclear: around 20 people are being sought, according to authorities.
A fishing boat with 400 people on board floated in the central Mediterranean on Easter Sunday, according to aid organization Alarm Phone. The boat departed from Tobruk in Libya. “We have alerted the authorities, but no rescue operation has yet been confirmed,” reports Alarm Phone.
The number of refugees has multiplied compared to last year
Despite the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, many people continue to find their way to Europe. According to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior in Rome, 28,028 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy by sea since the beginning of 2023, compared to 6,832 in the same period in 2022 and 8,394 in 2021.
Source: Krone
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