Dozens Of African Migrants Die In Boat Sinking

At least 92 people have died after a boat carrying African migrants sank off the southern Italian Island of Lampedusa, the Island’s mayor has said.

Officials say that more than 140 have been rescued but hundreds are missing.

Passengers reportedly threw themselves into the sea as the vessel got into trouble and Italian officials were quoted as saying that dozens of people were still in the water.

“At one point there was a fire on the boat and so the migrants moved, all of them, to one side of the boat which capsized,” Simona Moscarelli, a spokeswoman from the International Migration Organisation in Rome, told the BBC.

It is one of the worst such disasters to occur off the Italian coast in recent years. Prime Minister Enrico Letta had tweeted that it was “an immense tragedy”.

The boat was believed to have been carrying about 500 people at the time.