ROME — Prosecutors in Sicily on Thursday investigated a capsizing that left 41 migrants missing in the Mediterranean Sea after they set out in a flimsy boat from Tunisia, the latest in a string of similar tragedies involving people who entrust themselves to smugglers to reach Italy's shores.
Four young migrants who were rescued by a passing merchant ship told doctors and police on a tiny Italian island where they were brought on Wednesday that they survived by holding on to inner tubes for hours. They and a few other survivors spotted an empty boat a nd struggled to reach it. But only the four of them made it to the boat and climbed aboard — to find the iron-hulled, open-topped vessel had no engine.
State TV reported that the migrants survived for some four days on four bottles of drinking water and a half-package of crackers they found in the boat. A Malta-flagged ship rescued them, and an Italian Coast Guard vessel took them to Lampedusa island.
The survivors said 41 fellow passengers, including three children, set out with them from the port of Sfax, Tunisia, on Aug. 3. Waves as high as 4 meters (13 feet) swamped the smugglers' boats the next day, they said. The others were missing, and presumably died.
“Their story is incredible,'' Prosecutor Salvatore Vella, who is based in Agrigento, Sicily, told reporters on Wednesday, according to Corriere della Sera. Still, ”as things stand, we have no reason to doubt their account."
Vella was not immediately available to elaborate on his comments.
The Istanbul-based owner of the Rimona, the commercial vessel, whose crew put a ladder over the side so the four survivors could finally reach climb to safety, declined to comment.
The empty boat the survivors spotted in the sea is similar to the unseaworthy ones hastily soldered together with pieces of iron in Tunisia to keep up with the demand by migrants desperate to make the risky journey toward Italy's shores.
The United Nations and private organizations have expressed alarm over the string of shipwrecks and capsized boats. Pope Francis, who since the start of his papacy has repeatedly denounced the loss of life of migrants at sea, expressed fresh dismay Thursday.
“With sorrow I heard about the news of the shipwreck involving migrants in the Mediterranean Sea,” Francis said in a tweet. “Let us not remain indifferent to these tragedies, and let us pray for the victims and their families.”
The fate of who those who might have been aboard the empty vessel isn't known. But it is not uncommon for smugglers in the Mediterranean to tow or transfer people between boats at sea.
Over the last 10 years or so, hundreds of thousands of migrants have set out across the central Mediterranean in vessels launched by smugglers based in North Africa or from Turkey.
Some travelers who made it safely to Italy told authorities that their smugglers sometimes left them in a rickety vessel without an engine after speeding off on other boats, stranding the passengers.
According to an official of the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, a fishing boat was recently seen harassing migrants at sea off Tunisia’s coast, circling around them and asking them for money in exchange for towing them to closer to Lampedusa. The official was not authorized to speak to journalists and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose government includes an anti-migrant party, had enlisted the European Union's help to forge an accord with Tunisia in an effort to stop the exodus of migrants from its shores in exchange for economic and other aid.
But the number of migrants reaching Italy so far this year is more than double compared to the same period in 2022, with no sign of slowing. Some 1,000 set foot on Lampedusa in the 24 hours ending Thursday morning alone.
As of Thursday, nearly 94,800 migrants have arrived by sea this year in Italy, either after being rescued by the Italian Coast Guard or private charity ships or by making it unaided, according to Interior Ministry figures. In the same period of last year, some 45,000 arrived.
On Wednesday, Libyan authorities said at least 27 African migrants have died in the country’s western desert near the border with Tunisia.
More than 100 African migrants remained stuck on the border area between Tunisia, Libya and the Mediterranean Sea, including women and children. Some have been there for over a month now, according to a Nigerian community leader who is in touch with them.
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Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain, Elaine Ganley in Paris and Robert Badendieck in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed reporting.
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