Almost 1,000 migrants land on Lampedusa

(ANSAmed) - ROMA, 10 APR - Almost 1,000 migrants landed Sunday on Lampedusa, the island south of Sicily and closest to Africa than to Italy which is used as a stepping stone for desperate migrants, local official said.
    They were followed Monday by 36 more who were picked up in Italy's search and rescue (SAR) area by a coast guard patrol boat.
    The island's migrant reception centre is overflowing several times over.
    The thirty-six migrants, including eight women and a minor, were rescued during the night in the Sar area by the Coast Guard patrol boat Cp319. The 7-metre boat on which they were travelling, which set sail at 3am on Friday, was left adrift, and the migrants, after being transshipped onto the rescue unit, were disembarked in Lampedusa. They reported being from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Guinea.
    On Sunday, there were 26 landings in Lampedusa with a total of 974 people. The Agrigento public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the shipwreck on the night between Saturday and Easter Sunday in the central Mediterranean, in Maltese Sar waters. There were 22 survivors, including nine women, rescued by the ship Nadir of the German NGO Resqship, which also recovered the bodies of two men. According to witnesses there are 18 missing. (ANSAmed).