A fishing boat with 573 migrants on
boat landed on Lampedusa on Monday after being rescued off the
island by Coast Guard patrol boats.
The boat had departed from Libya.
The group, which includes four women and two minors, was taken
to Lampedusa's migrant hotspot.
The hotspot had been empty since Friday as the last previous
migrant-boat landing was on November 22.
In the days before that a 26-year-old woman and a two-year-old
girl died and eight people were reported missing in two separate
shipwrecks off the island.
They were the latest in a long series of migrant-boat disasters
to take place off Italy's southernmost island, which is often
the first port of call for migrants and refugees trying to reach
Europe from North Africa.
Lampedusa has been at the centre of international attention in
recent months due to a big rise in the number of migrant boats
landing there.
As of November 21, 150,777 migrants and refugees have arrived in
Italy by sea since the start of the year, up 60% over the same
period in 2022 according to interior ministry figures.
Of the arrivals, around 70% have landed on Lampedusa.
Photo: an archive image of a migrant boat.
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