A migrant boat capsized between Sicily and Tunisia on Friday and hundreds of souls were in the ocean, the Italian navy said, and the national news agency ANSA said corpses have been spotted. The incident occurred just over a week after the about 319 people drowned when a ship carrying Eritrean and Somali migrants sank nearby the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
“You will find at least 200 people in the ocean and our helicopters are picking them up,” said a navy spokesman, adding that two navy ships were also on the scene. Last week's disaster was among the worst in an extended migrant crisis that has seen countless amounts of people arriving in small, unsafe boats in southern Italy. Lampedusa, a little island located midway between Sicily and Tunisia, has borne the brunt.