A woman from Guinea drowned in waters
off Lampedusa on Friday after the boat she was travelling on
capsized.
46 other people also on board were rescued by finance police and
disembarked together with the body on the tiny Sicilian island.
The rescued migrants and refugees said they were from Burkina
Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Gambia, Mali and Senegal, and
included 12 women and 5 minors.
Their 7-m boat reportedly overturned when they stood up together
on seeing the finance police patrol boat to call for help.
They said they had departed from Sfax in Tunisia at dawn on
Thursday and that they had paid 1,500 Tunisian dinars (around
450 euros) for the sea crossing.
Earlier on Friday the coast guard intervened to rescue a group
of 43 people including 14 women and 4 minors from Burkina Faso
and Guinea from a boat adrift in waters off Lampedusa.
They were the first group to arrive by sea after a five-day
hiatus due to bad weather.
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