Seven migrants have been rescued while 20 are still missing after a boat sank at the Lampedusa, island coast in Italy.
The mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino revealed that the incident occured on Tuesday, December 31.
Mannino noted that the small boat left the Libyan town of Zuwara in late hours of Monday, December 30 but ran into trouble on Tuesday, December 31 and capsized.
No bodies have been found so far.
He said, They didn’t make it to shore.
“Knowing that these poor souls were so close, but couldn’t make it is even more heartbreaking.”
Among the survivors was an 8-year-old Syrian boy, who was hoping to reunite with his father in Germany.
He had been traveling with his mother, who has not been seen since the boat went down on Tuesday, December 31.
Those who survived and were brought to Lampedusa indicated that the missing passengers included five women and three children.
The migration route across the Mediterranean between Africa and Europe is among the most perilous in the world, with nearly 24,500 people reported missing or dead in the central Mediterranean since 2014.
The majority of these deaths took place on boats that left from Libya and Tunisia.
Comments