Some 1,200 Migrants Arrived in Lampedusa in the Last 24 Hours

On Thursday, Italian outlets reported that at least 1,200 migrants arrived on the Lampedusa island over the last 24 hours. Local authorities also found the body of a woman who died in the latest shipwreck.

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On Wednesday, the Italian Coast Guard rescued 470 people traveling in 13 boats. Overnight, 885 migrants on 21 barges disembarked on the Lampedusa. In both cases, most of the boats seem to have set out from Sfax, in Tunisia.

The migrants come from countries such as Chad, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and The Gambia. They were taken to the Lampedusa reception center, which can only house about 300 migrants.

During the early morning, there was also a shipwreck near the Italian island. Some 20 migrants from Cameroon and the Ivory Coast were rescued alive. A young woman, however, died in the shipwreck.

Hours earlier, the Coast Guard had rescued 38 migrants, including a minor and 11 women, who also sank in the Mediterranean.

The tweet reads, "Small boat sinks off Lampedusa. 38 immigrants are rescued by Coast Guard. They are not lost at sea."

In the first two months of 2023, some 15,823 migrants arrived on the Italian shores. In the same period of 2022, only 5,976 migrants arrived, according to data from the Interior Ministry

When analyzing what the Italian press is describing as "the new migration crisis", Ferruccio Pastore, director of Fieri, an Italian think tank focused on immigration issues, indicated that the data on migrant deaths at sea is notoriously unreliable.

"Migrant arrivals are relatively easy to calculate because each country keeps close track... But deaths at sea? A boat could go under with no formal record of it. Even when we're aware of it, we don't always know how many people were on board," he explained.

"What is clear is that the number of people fleeing their countries due to conflict, poverty and other factors is on the rise -- and so is the number of those who lose their lives doing so."