Rome, Italy: Six people died and 40 are missing after a migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean, the United Nations said Wednesday, with Italian media reporting the boat went down off the island of Lampedusa.
"Still too many dead in a new shipwreck in the Mediterranean," UNHCR's Italy representative Chiara Cardoletti said on X, adding that the inflatable dinghy had left Tunisia on Monday carrying 56 people.
"After a few hours of sailing, the dinghy began to deflate and take on water. Six bodies (were) recovered. 40 missing," she said.
Italy's coastguard and financial police pulled 10 people to safety -- six men and four women -- off the tiny rocky outcrop of Lampione, according to Italian media reports.
Those rescued said there had been 56 people on board when it left but only six bodies -- all male -- were recovered from the area, the reports said.
Survivors said some of the missing had fallen overboard in rough seas, according to the AGI news agency.
The migrants were from the Ivory Coast, Mali, Gambia and Cameroon, it said.
After the migrants were rescued, a separate group of 40 migrants landed on Lampedusa after travelling from Sfax in Tunisia in metal boats, ANSA news agency reported.
There were five landings in Lampedusa Tuesday with a total of 213 migrants, bringing the total number of people in the island's reception centre to 230, it said.
Some 8,743 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, slightly more than the number who arrived in the same period last year, according to Italy's interior ministry.