‌Italian authorities have launched an investigation after a boat carrying 45 migrants from Tunisia to Italy sank in the Mediterranean Sea on August 3, leaving 41 people dead.

‌On Wednesday, Italian media reported the testimony of four survivors who had been on a boat that left the Tunisian coast late last week. The three men and one woman said their boat capsized after being hit by a large wave shortly after departing for Lampedusa, an Italian island that sits off the coast of Tunisia. 

The survivors say they found another abandoned vessel and were out at sea for several days before being rescued by a cargo ship. They were then transferred onto a ship from the Italian coast guard and brought to Lampedusa.

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‌‌Sea-Watch, an NGO that runs rescue operations in the Mediterranean, confirmed parts of the survivors' account in a series of social media posts.‌ In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the NGO said that "after the shipwreck" the survivors "managed to swim to an empty boat where they survived 6 days at sea.”

‌"European authorities ignored the widely predicted bad weather and abandoned dozens of boats to their fate. Because of this inaction, the number of dead and missing in the Mediterranean has risen to 2,063…this year alone," said Sea-Watch in another post.

‌State of emergency

‌Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made migrant crossings one of the central issues of her premiership so far.‌ She has declared a six-month state of emergency, hosted a recent international conference on migration in Rome and was a key figure in brokering a recent deal between the European Union and Tunisia.

‌Under the agreement, Tunisia's government will receive approximately $110 million from the E.U. to help it to crack down on human trafficking groups.

‌However, Meloni's policies have failed to make an impact on the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. According to the United Nations, more than 120,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year. The UN has recorded more than 1,800 people as either dead or missing in the Central Mediterranean in 2023.

‌Reacting to the survivors' testimony from Lampedusa, opposition parties also criticized the Meloni government's policies.

‌"Too many lives broken in search of a better future. The sea has killed them but above all indifference did. Europe and the Italian government should not turn a blind eye: there is a moral duty to stop what is now real carnage," said Raffaella Paita, a senator from the opposition Italia Viva party in a social media post.

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