Status: 04/10/2023 11:17 a.m
Italy’s government is currently counting more incoming migrants than it has in a long time. According to the Ansa news agency, almost 1,000 people reached the island of Lampedusa at Easter alone. But not all boats reach their destination.
On the Easter weekend, too, many migrants dared to make the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean Sea towards Italy. About 1,000 people arrived on the island of Lampedusa in just 24 hours, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
A total of 974 people reached the small island in several boats on Sunday. According to the information, many children were among them. A total of 26 landings were registered. More arrivals are expected throughout the day. The day before there had been 17 landings with 679 migrants, reports Ansa.
The initial reception center on Lampedusa was again overcrowded after the weekend. In the camp, which can actually accommodate a maximum of almost 400 people, 1883 migrants are now housed.
Again dead and missing after boat accident
Meanwhile, according to the German aid organization Resqship, two bodies were recovered during a rescue operation in international waters near Malta on Sunday – 25 people were taken out of the water and rescued. They were taken aboard the organization’s motor sailboat “Nadir” and taken to Lampedusa. About 20 other people are missing.
According to the captain of the “Nadir”, Ingo Werth, these are men, women and children from Mali, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast. Your boat, which started in Sfax, Tunisia, capsized on Sunday night. As the rescued reported, their boat was initially in distress and later went under. Several people are still missing, Resqship wrote on Twitter.
Four times as many migrants as a year ago
Lampedusa is located between Sicily and North Africa, just under 190 kilometers from the Tunisian coastal town of Sfax. Many people keep trying to get to Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily or the Italian mainland by boat from Tunisia and Libya via the central Mediterranean. The Ministry of the Interior in Rome counted more than 28,000 people who reached Italy on boats this year – more than four times as many as in the same period last year (more than 6900).