At least six migrants died and another 40 disappeared in the waters of the Mediterranean after the shipwreck of a barge that occurred in the early hours of Wednesday at a short distance from, as confirmed by the Coast Guard. The Italian authorities sent a patrol to the area after receiving an alert from the European Border Frontex Agency. Upon arriving, they found the precarious boat about to sink and managed to rescue ten people on board. They also located six lifeless bodies, but the survivors indicated that in the Cayuco there were at least another 40 people, which the coastguards are still looking for in the water. The migrants who have survived the shipwreck have reported that the boat left last Sunday from the coasts of the Tunisian city of Sfax and that they traveled, in total, 56 people.
The rescued shipwrecks, six men and four women, have also explained that the difficulties began shortly after the barge saved. Attending to his story, collected by local media, after leaving Tunisia and after less than 24 hours of navigation, many people fell into the water, probably due to sea conditions, which was agitated. Despite this, the boat continued to sail until at night between Tuesday and Wednesday, when it was almost sunken, it was intercepted by the Italian coastlines near the Islet of Lampedione, next to Lampedusa.
The survivors received medical attention and then were transferred to the first reception center of the island, where they will be identified and attended by the Red Cross, which also provides them with psychological assistance, before being destined for other shelter centers in Italy.
The mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, lamented the deaths and pointed to “the bad conditions of the sea” as a probable cause of the tragedy. It had not come to Lampedusa vessels from Tunisia for several weeks: all those arrived in recent times declared that they had sailed from Libya. However, another 40 migrants arrived on Lampedusa who assured that SFAX had also left aboard a metal vessel of eight meters in length. On Tuesday, five landings were recorded in, with 213 migrants.
In recent months, the Central Mediterranean has been the scene of others. At the beginning of the year, two improvised vessels that were heading to Europe shipwrecked off the coast of Tunisia. A few miles from the Tunisian coasts were rescued 83 migrants, along with the bodies of 27 travel companions, including women and children. Meanwhile, northeast of the Tunisian island of Jerba, in international waters, another boat was sank with 60 people on board.
The NGOs attending in the Mediterranean and on land migrants have denounced the lack of common policies to monitor the dangerous journeys in the sea facing thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe. “While political and media attention is largely focused on the new proposal for the reform of European legislation on repatriations, there has been another tragedy avoidable in the sea,” said Giorgia d’E errico, director of Institutional Relations of Save the Children. And he has continued: “We cannot get used to these deaths. Save the Children reiterates its call to activate a coordinated and structured system of search and rescue in the sea to save lives, acting according to international principles and demonstrating solidarity that is a founding value of the European Union, and for regular and safe roads to open to reach Europe.”
So far this year, 8,900 migrants have reached the Italian coast, according to the data of the Ministry of Interior, a number similar to those that arrived last year in the same period but less than 20,300 that landed in 2023. According to the International Organization for Migration, about 500 people have lost their lives this year in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe.
