About 1,000 people seeking protection have arrived in Lampedusa since yesterday. 18 landings were reported on the island, media reported. People coming from Libya and Tunisia reported paying up to 4,000 euros for the crossing. As the Tunisian National Guard announced, the country’s coast guard stopped a total of 20 “attempts” on the night of yesterday. 803 people were rescued from boats in distress off Sfax, Mahdia and Nabul.
On Friday evening, a boat sank in Maltese waters about 68 kilometers from Lampedusa. 37 people, including seven women, were rescued by the NGO ship “Nadir” and three fishing boats and then transferred to an Italian Coast Guard patrol boat. Missing is a Burkina Faso man, brother of one of the survivors who arrived in Lampedusa with the other 36. 42,000 people have landed on the island since the beginning of 2023, four times as many as in the same period in 2022.
