"Chaotic scenes" during a rescue in the early hours of Wednesday (September 13) were reported by the Italian news agency ANSA, in which several people on a boat carrying around 46 migrants fell into the water while attempting to get to safety on board the coast guard vessel.

According to the authorities, the boat carrying the migrants tipped just before the coast guard arrived and several people, including an infant, fell into the water. The coast guard managed to save the adults but were unaware of the baby's presence until it was too late.

The coast guard said it believed the boat had tipped as the migrants, on seeing the coast guard, had all moved to one side hoping to speed up their rescue.

Waiting for a postmortem

The Italian coast guard managed to retrieve the baby’s body from the water and it was taken to a mortuary at Cala Pisano. Italian port authorities are investigating the tragedy. The mother, a Guinean national and a minor herself, is receiving psychological support.

An online news portal, Live Sicilia, reported that the young mother had been traveling with her sister, brother-in-law and a nephew. Authorities are now considering transferring the family by plane, rather than by ferry, but are waiting until the baby's body is released after the postmortem examination.

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'Record number of arrivals'

The boat in which the mother and baby had been traveling is said to have departed from the port of Sfax in Tunisia. Their arrival in Lampedusa was one of many. Italy's interior ministry announced Wednesday that more than 5,000 migrants had arrived by sea in the 24 hours to 8 am on Tuesday, September 12, and a further 1,050 migrants by the same time on Wednesday.

So many boats arrived at once, many under their own steam, that reporters and the Italian authorities spoke of "queues" of boats waiting to dock in the port of Lampedusa. On Wednesday morning, the German press agency EPD said that more than 100 boats had arrived in the last 24 hours.

Reception center on Lampedusa once again over-full

The first reception center on Lampedusa, which has a capacity to hold about 400 people is once again over capacity. By Wednesday, there were at least 4,000 people there, according to reports in the Italian media, though the authorities were hurrying to transfer as many migrants as possible via ferry and coast guard boats towards Sicily and the Italian mainland.

Lampedusa’s mayor, Filippo Mannino told the Italian press agency ANSA that the authorities were trying hard to speed up the system by which boats could dock and people could reach land safely and then be brought to the Italian mainland to relieve the burden of so many arrivals on his island.

Italian Interior Ministry figures, updated on September 13, show that from the beginning of the year, more than 123,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by boat. That is almost double the equivalent numbers from January to mid-September in 2022.

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With dpa, EPD, Reuters and ANSA