Nine people are dead and 15 are
missing after the latest migrant-boat shipwreck in the southern
Mediterranean late on Wednesday.
The victims include a girl estimated to be aged between four and
eight.
The Italian Coast Guard managed to save 22 people in an
operation in the Maltese search-and-rescue zone.
The survivors and bodies of the victims were taken to Lampedusa,
Italy's southernmost island and the destination migrant-boats
from North Africa frequently head towards.
Six of the survivors are in hospital.
Rough sea conditions, with waves over two metres high, are
complicating the search for the missing people, the Coast Guard
said Thursday.
The boat was carrying 46 people from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali
and the Ivory Coast.
It departed from Sfax in Tunisia on Sunday.
Photo: an archive image of a migrant-boat rescue.
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