Flotation devices are seen in the area where a migrant boat capsized off the Italian coast, on the island of Lampedusa, Italy. /Mauro Buccarello/File Photo/Reuters
Forty-one migrants have been killed in a shipwreck off Italy's Lampedusa island, the ANSA news agency reported, citing accounts from survivors.
The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia's Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.
The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – said they were rescued by a cargo ship and then transferred onto an Italian coastguard vessel.
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The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying around 30 people were missing from them.
The coast guard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax on Thursday.
Separately, Tunisian authorities said on Monday that they had recovered 11 bodies from a shipwreck near Sfax on Sunday, with 44 migrants still missing from that sinking.
Around 93,700 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
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