Italian finance police on Sunday
rescued 45 migrants and refugees after the seven-metere boat
they were travelling on sank in waters off Lampedusa.
The shipwreck survivors are from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory
Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Niger, and the group
includes seven women and a minor.
They were all subsequently disembarked on the tiny Sicilian
stepping-stone island, where they reported that no one was dead
or missing.
The group had departed from Tunisia and said they paid 2,000
Tunisian dinars (just under 600 euros) each for the crossing.
The sea rescue and disembarkation took to 390 the number of
migrants and refugees who arrived on Lampedusa since midnight
(figure updated to around 11.15 local time).
The arrivals included 16 Tunisian nationals who were intercepted
by finance police on the island having landed autonomously.
They said they made the crossing in a six-metre fibre glass boat
that departed from Djerba.
However, no trace of the vessel has so far been found.
On Sunday morning there were 2,127 people in the Lampedusa
hotspot against an official capacity of just under 400.
Some 1,200 people were due to be transferred off the island
during the course of the day by passenger ferry to Porto
Empedocle and Trapani on mainland Sicily.
Photo: archive photo of migrants and refugees disembarking at
Lampedusa port.
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