A total of 26 boats carryong n974 migrants landed in Lampedusa on Easter Sunday, Italian media report.

The migrants told Italian authorities that they had left from Zarzis, Chebba, Jebiniana and Kerkenna in Tunisia, and that they had each paid $4,000.

NGO ResQship, with its boat Nadir, rescued 22 persons and lifted two dead bodies out of the water, it said on its Twitter feed. It said another 23 are believed to have died in the “European cemetery which we call Mediterranean”.

Another NGO, Alarm phone, said that there are another 400 migrants in distress. They had left from Tobruk, in Libya, the NGO said.

Photo: File photo