MILAN (AP) — The Italian Coast Guard has recovered six bodies and was searching for up to 40 migrants missing after a rubber dinghy that departed from Tunisia sank in the central Mediterranean, the U.N. refugee agency in Italy said Wednesday.
Another 10 people, including four women, were rescued Tuesday and brought to Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa. The Red Cross said they were in good physical condition, and were receiving psychological care.
Survivors said that some 56 people were in the dinghy when it departed from the Tunisian port of Sfax on Monday evening, the UNHCR reported.
The boat started to deflate a few hours after departure. The people on board were from Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali, the UNHCR said.
The U.N. Missing Migrant Project puts the number of the dead and missing in the perilous central Mediterranean at over 24,506 from 2014 to 2024, many of whom were lost at sea. The project says that number may be greater, as many deaths go unrecorded, with the sightings of so-called ghost ships with no one aboard and remains of people washing ashore in Libya not associated with any known shipwreck.
So far this year, 8,963 migrants have arrived in Italy, according to Interior Ministry figures updated Wednesday, a 4% increase over the same period last year.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s center-right government has pushed for economic agreements with northern African countries aimed at prevent departures. Speaking to lawmakers this week, Meloni credited the deals with a nearly 60% drop of migrant arrivals in Italy last year to 66,317 from 157,651 in 2023, adding that in 2024 1,695 people were dead or missing at sea, compared with 2,526 a year earlier.
“What do these numbers mean? They tell us that reducing the departures, and curbing the traffickers’ business is the only way to reduce the number of migrants who lose their lives trying to reach Italy and Europe,” she said on Tuesday.