At least 41 people are feared to have died after a boat sank in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa, in the central Mediterranean, Italian authorities and the UN said yesterday.
Four people rescued yesterday morning by a Maltese bulk carrier, and eventually moved to an Italian coastguard patrol boat, said they had been on a vessel that set off from the Tunisian port of Sfax six days ago and sank on its way to Italy.
The survivors a 13-year-old boy, a woman and two men from Ivory Coast and Guinea - said that the precarious metal boat carrying 45 passengers had begun to take on water as soon as they reached the open sea. "Suddenly we were overwhelmed by a giant wave," one survivor told the coastguard.
Almost all the passengers, who are believed to be from sub-Saharan Africa and included three children, ended up in the sea for hours. According to the survivors' testimonies, at least 41 passengers are believed to have drowned. Neither the Maltese bulk carrier nor the Italian coastguard boat found any bodies.
The Sea-Watch charity rescue group, whose surveillance plane spotted the people being rescued by a cargo ship, said: "They were among the few aboard [the sunken boat] with a life jacket, and [after the shipwreck] they remained in the water until they found another empty boat."
According to rescuers, the survivors are exhausted and in a state of shock. They are presumed to have spent several days adrift at sea with no food or drinking water.
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