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Forty-one migrants are thought to have died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, Italian authorities and United Nations agencies said Wednesday, citing survivors who have been taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Local public prosecutor Salvatore Vella and three UN agencies confirmed media reports that four people who survived the shipwreck had told rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.
The survivors – a 13-year-old boy, a woman, and two men – arrived in Lampedusa on Wednesday, almost six days after the sinking of their boat, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Unicef, and UNHCR, said in a joint statement.
The boat had set off on August 3 from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank during the night after being hit by a big wave, the survivors were quoted by multiple sources, including Ansa news agency, as saying.
