ROME: Six people died and 40 are missing after a migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as Italian authorities searched for survivors off the island of Lampedusa.

“Still too many dead in a new shipwreck in the Mediterranean,” Chiara Cardoletti, the Italy representative of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said on X.

An inflatable dinghy carrying 56 people left the Tunisian port of Sfax on Monday before getting into trouble, she said. “After a few hours of sailing, the dinghy began to deflate and take on water. Six bodies recovered. 40 missing,” she wrote.

Italy’s coastguard said it pulled 10 people to safety and was scouring the area for survivors. “Due to the particularly adverse weather and sea conditions, the search operations are being carried out with the support of various aircraft... which will take turns in overflying the area,” the coastguard said in a statement.

Those included aircraft belonging to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, it said. The dinghy was reportedly found partially deflated off the tiny rocky outcrop of Lampione, to the west of Lampedusa, which lies closer to North Africa than Europe. The search and rescue centres in Malta and Tunisia have both been alerted as part of efforts to recover the missing, the coastguard said.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2025