ROME -- A boat carrying 47 migrants sank during the hours of Saturday night and Sunday morning in international waters, Italy’s Financial Police have said. 

  Among the 47 people on board, 44 were rescued by a nearby Tunisian fishing boat. The 44 people rescued were then transferred to the CP319 patrol boat, which then took the migrants to the island of Lampedusa. 

  Searches for the three missing people are now underway, led by a patrol boat from the Financial Police. 

  According to one of the women on board the boat, the group had disembarked from the city of Sfax in Tunisia, with each migrant paying 800 euros for the crossing. It is understood that those rescued are of Gambian, Guinean, Malaysian, and Senegalese nationality. 

lw