In just 24 hours: 1,300 refugees arrived in Lampedusa “Last step”: Prigozhin alludes to disbanding his Wagner mercenaries

Despite the recent boat accident that killed at least 72 people, many refugees and migrants continue to make the perilous crossing across the Mediterranean to Italy.

In just 24 hours, some 1,350 people have arrived by boat on the island of Lampedusa alone, the Italian news agency Ansa reported on Thursday. People, including children, reached the small island in several boats. The refugees from Syria, Yemen and several countries in Africa are believed to have started in the Tunisian coastal town of Sfax, it was said.

In the few hours from midnight to Thursday morning alone, nearly 900 people arrived in Lampedusa in 21 boats. Two refugee boats were in distress on Wednesday. Ships from the Coast Guard came to the rescue, the emergency services first removed 38 and then 20 people from the water. During the second operation, the Coast Guard also recovered the body of a young woman.

Lampedusa is located between Sicily and North Africa, it is almost 190 kilometers away from Sfax. Many people try to get to Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily or the Italian mainland by boat from Tunisia and Libya via the Central Mediterranean. Often this succeeds, sometimes they are picked up by civilian lifeboats at sea. Usually, however, they are discovered and brought ashore by ships of the Italian Coast Guard.

The coastguard has been under fire for days because it failed to help a refugee boat that left Turkey at the end of February. It capsized just off the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria; at least 72 people were killed, many are still missing. The Coast Guard and government in Rome say no emergency was reported to them the night before the accident. The prosecutor’s office of the city of Crotone is investigating the cause, which has caused commotion, horror and outrage.

(yam/sda/dpa)