ROME – More than 800 people arrived on the island of Lampedusa on Monday following two shipwrecks off the Tunisian coast as the migrant crisis worsens, according to the Italian Coast Guard.

 A 7-metre boat sank in the Italian Sar area which had left from Sfax in Tunisia at 9 p.m. on Saturday night. A fishing boat rescued 34 migrants and recovered the body of a man on Monday. The group of survivors and the body were transferred onto the Coast Guard patrol boat Cp319, which brought everyone to Lampedusa.The survivors are 26 men, 8 women and 6 minors. About 20 migrants are missing after the shipwreck. This was reported by the 34 survivors immediately after the transfer to the Coast Guard patrol boat Cp319. The Harbour Office is coordinating the search for the missing.

 A second boat then sank after having left Sfax at 10 p.m. on Saturday, just an hour after the first shipwrecked vessel. The Coast Guard rescued 42 people, including five women and three children. Three men are reported to still be missing. In this case, the survivors reported being from Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

 A total of 640 migrants, spread over 17 boats, landed on Sunday on Lampedusa, which suddenly found itself in emergency again. And another 179 rescued, after midnight, while travelling on four barges. A total of 21 landings with 819 people in the space of 24 hours. The patrol boats of the Harbour Office and Guardia di Finanza are struggling to rescue the many barges that are reported in the Sar area or in the waters off the island. The flurry of landings, which began late Saturday morning, is taking place after a four-day stoppage due to poor sea conditions.

 On the 21 boats, which set sail from Sfax in Tunisia except for one that left from Chebba, there were groups of 35 to 47 migrants from the Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, but also from Sudan.

 "In the last few days there are reportedly between 10,000 and 20,000 people fleeing the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur to seek refuge in neighbouring Chad," explains the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, according to which there are "millions of people fleeing the region" of Sudan.

 In the groups that have arrived on Monday, there are also many women and children. The boats on which they move, 6 or 7-metre metal vessels, have been deemed by the Agrigento public prosecutor's office to be “floating coffins” because they capsize immediately.

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