Oct. 21 () –
At least two children have died this Friday after an explosion was registered aboard a boat with migrants bound for Lampedusa in the maritime search and rescue area of responsibility (SAR zone) of Malta, according to the Italian Coast Guard.
The ship was heading to Lampedusa with 39 people on board. Eight other migrants were injured: two children, a man and five women, one of them with serious burns, according to the Italian newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’.
According to the Maltese authorities, who coordinated the dispatch of vehicles, a Lampedusa Coast Guard patrol boat was dispatched to the scene and recovered 38 migrants — including the bodies of the two dead minors — some of whom had already they had been rescued by a Tunisian fishing boat that was the first to come and report the explosion.
The rescued migrants have arrived in Lampedusa while, for the time being, a woman is still missing. A Coast Guard plane and a patrol boat are involved in the search operations, according to a statement from the Italian Coast Guard.
