(): The Italian Coast Guard recovered six bodies and was searching for up to 40 migrants missing after a rubber dinghy that departed from Tunisia sank in the central Mediterranean, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday. Another 10 people, including four women, were rescued Tuesday and brought to Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa. The Red Cross said they were in good condition and were receiving psychological care. Aircraft from the European border agency Frontex, the Italian coast guard and others were assisting in the search due to difficult sea conditions, the coast guard said. Survivors said some 56 people were in the dinghy when it departed from the Tunisian port of Sfax on Monday, UNHCR said. The boat started to deflate a few hours later. The people on board were from Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali, the UNHCR said. The UN Missing Migrant Project puts the number of the dead and missing in the perilous central Mediterranean at over 24,506 from 2014 to 2024, many of them lost at sea. The project says the number may be greater as many deaths go unrecorded.

So far this year, 8,963 migrants have arrived in Italy, according to Interior Ministry figures updated Wednesday, a 4 per cent increase over the same period last year.Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s centre-right government has pushed for economic agreements with northern African countries aimed at prevent departures. Speaking to lawmakers this week, Meloni credited the deals with a nearly 60 per cent drop in migrant arrivals in Italy last year to 66,317 from 157,651 in 2023.

She said 1,695 people were dead or missing at sea in 2024, compared with 2,526 a year earlier. “What do these numbers mean? They tell us that reducing the departures, and curbing the traffickers’ business, is the only way to reduce the number of migrants who lose their lives trying to reach Italy and Europe,’ she said.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian rescue group Emergency rescued 35 people in the Libyan search-and-rescue area on Monday and was ordered to bring them to the northern city of La Spezia to disembark, in keeping with the Meloni government practice of assigning ports far from the rescue area. “This means three days more to arrive, and above all it means to increase the suffering of the shipwrecked people,’ said Anabel Montes Mier, who was running the mission.