Two boats carrying African refugees sank in bad weather off southern Italy, killing two people and leaving more than 30 others missing, AFP and Reuters reported.
Italy’s coastguard said it recovered the bodies of two refugees who were on board a vessel that wrecked the previous day in waters near the country’s southernmost island of Lampedusa, and rescued 57 others.
The two dead recovered in waters 46 kilometers south of Lampedusa Island were a woman and her 1-year-old child from Côte d’Ivoire.
Survivors said the two vessels, which had set sail from Sfax, Tunisia, were headed for Europe when they encountered a storm and sank.
Italy’s Ansa news agency reported that a total of 90 people were on board the vessels, but the Italian Coast Guard said it could not officially confirm the total number of people on board or how many were missing.
However, the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization, has said that at least 30 people remain missing, based on accounts from survivors.
The waters off southern Italy have been hit by strong storms over the past few days, which have led to more than 2,000 refugees being rescued and reaching the island of Lampedusa.
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, around 92,000 migrants have arrived by sea so far this year, 카지노사이트넷 more than double the 42,600 in the same period last year.
