PALERMO, italy: Dozens of people including women and children died yesterday when a boat carrying around 250 migrants capsized and spilled them into the sea between Sicily and Tunisia, the second such tragedy in a little over a week, the Italian coastguard said. The Italian news agency Ansa reported that around 50 corpses had so far been sighted, including around 10 children, following the accident about 60 miles south of the island of Lampedusa.
At least 339 people drowned on October 3 when a boat carrying Eritrean and Somali migrants sank near the tiny southern Italian island of Lampedusa, southwest of Sicily. The Maltese navy said one of its ships had rescued 150 migrants and that an Italian navy vessel had saved 56. The most seriously injured were being taken by helicopter to Lampedusa. Maltese authorities were coordinating the rescue operation, which was in international waters but in a Maltese rescue zone, and a Maltese ship was on the scene. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 32,000 have arrived in southern Italy and Malta this year alone, around two thirds of whom have filed requests for asylum.Reuters
