DHAKA: At least 94 people have died and scores are missing after a boat carrying African migrants, mostly from Eritrea, sank off the island of Lampedusa.

Officials and rescuers said, reports Al Jazeera.

Passengers on a boat that sank off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa were all believed to be Eritreans coming from Libya, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration said, reports The Straits Times.

The boat caught fire half a mile from the coast, UNHCR said.

Earlier, Lampedusa mayor Giusy Nicolini said 82 dead bodies had been recovered on Thursday, and the death toll was expected to rise as the rescue operation continued.

‘It’s horrific, like a cemetery, they are still bringing them out,’ she said.

According to media reports, more than 150 people were rescued but some 200 others were still unaccounted for.

‘We need only caskets, certainly not ambulances,’ Pietro Bartolo, chief of health services on the island, told Radio 24.

BDST: 2027 HRS, OCT 03, 2013
RoR/RIS