The bodies of eight deceased migrants were transferred on Tuesday (February 7) from a morgue at Lampedusa's cemetery via ferry to Sicily, southern Italy, so that an autopsy could be carried out there.

While the autopsies were meant to happen in the morgue of the San Giovanni di Dio hospital in Agrigento, only four of the bodies were initially taken in there, due to communication issues between authorities, local media reported. The other four were sent to municipality cemeteries of Licata and Canicatti, two other towns in the region.

The eight had been travelling in a dinghy carrying a total of 52 people that had set out from Sfax in Tunisia. Italian authorities rescued the boat on February 2 around 42 miles off the Italian island of Lampedusa, in the Maltese Search and Rescue zone.

Three of the dead bodies discovered on the boat were women, one of whom was pregnant. Survivors told local media that they are believed to have died of cold and starvation.

Two bodies lost on fatal journey

As well as the deceased migrants recovered from the boat, two others died during the crossing, according to accounts from survivors. A newborn baby reportedly slipped from his mother's arms into the water when she fainted, and a man died trying to recover the baby from the sea. The baby's mother subsequently died – her body was among those remaining on the dinghy.

After rescuers found the eight deceased migrants in the boat, the prosecutor's office of Agrigento opened a criminal investigation and ordered the autopsies to be performed.

The 42 migrants who survived the crossing were reported to be nationals of Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Niger.