ROME: More than 40 migrants are feared dead off Italy's Lampedusa after a lone 11-year-old survivor said the boat she was on capsized, a rescue group said Wednesday.
"We assume that she is the only survivor of the shipwreck and that the other 44 people drowned," said Compass Collective, which assists in migrant rescue missions in the Mediterranean.
The group's Trotamar III vessel "heard the calls in the darkness" of the girl Wednesday morning at approximately 2:20am (0120 GMT) while heading to another emergency.
"The 11-year-old girl, originally from Sierra Leone, had been floating in the water for three days with two improvised life jackets made from tire tubes filled with air and a simple life jacket," the group said in a statement.
Mauro Marino, a doctor who examined the survivor, told La Repubblica daily that he believed the girl had been in the sea for some 12 hours.
The girl told rescuers that the metal boat left from Sfax, Tunisia, but sank in a storm.
"The girl had no drinking water or food with her and was hypothermic, but reactive and oriented," Compass Collective said.
A spokeswoman for Mediterranean Hope, another charity, told AFP the girl was recuperating in hospital after her rescue.
Group representatives found the girl to be "very tired," said spokeswoman Marta Bernardini.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that the coast guard and police boats were searching the area on Wednesday where the shipwrecked boat was found.
"They have not yet found bodies nor traces of clothing," ANSA wrote.
Also Wednesday, another NGO, Mediterranea Saving Humans, said it was concerned that at least three other shipwrecks may have occurred recently between Tunisia and Lampedusa.
Each boat – carrying 45 people, 75 people and 45 people, respectively – departed from Tunisia on different days at the end of November, as tracked by Alarm Phone, whose hotline accepts distress calls from migrants at sea.
"Alarm Phone immediately communicated all the information in its possession to the competent authorities in the area, namely the rescue centres of Tunisia, Malta and Italy, but no feedback was provided by them," wrote Mediterranea.
The group called for a "wide-ranging search operation to track down possible survivors."
Thus far 2,050 migrants have died or gone missing this year while attempting to cross via the Central Mediterranean crossing, the world's deadliest migration route.
The International Organisation for Migration reports that many shipwrecks go unrecorded, as "boats in distress disappear with no survivors."
Since 2014, there have been more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances recorded by the group in the area. - AFP