Migrant arrivals continue on Lampedusa

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 27 - Three groups of migrants and refugees respectively numbering 68, 15 and 54 people landed on Lampedusa between midnight and dawn on Wednesday morning.
    The two larger groups, comprising Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Eritreans, Pakistanis, Syrians and Ethiopians, said they had departed from Zuwara in Libya and that they had paid 5,000 dollars or 6,000 euro each for the passage.
    The smallest group said they had departed from Sfax in Tunisia on Tuesday morning and that they had paid 1,500 euro each for the crossing.
    The group of 54 later reported that one of the two outboard motors on their seven-metre boat exploded during the journey.
    No one reportedly died or was missing following the incident and the boat was subsequently intercepted by a coast guard patrol boat and accompanied to port.
    On Tuesday 482 migrants and refugees arrived in 14 separate landings on the tiny Sicilian island that is closer to Tunisia than it is to Italy in search of safety and a better future in Europe.
    Following the new arrivals, on Wednesday morning there were 619 people in the island migrant reception centre or hotspot, including 57 unaccompanied minors.
    Roughly 300 people were due to be transferred off the island to mainland Sicily by passenger ferry to Porto Empedocle on Wednesday evening.
    (Archive photo of a migrant boat arriving in port on Lampedusa) (ANSA).