The four survivors, three men and a woman, were saved by a bulk carrier and transferred to a Coast Guard vessel that took them to the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.
They said three children were among the victims of the disaster.
Neither bulk carrier, named The Rimona, nor the Coast Guard boat came across any of the victim’s bodies.
The survivors, who come from Ivory Coast and Guinea, are thought to have been in the water for more than a day before being rescued. The boat, which sank, departed from Sfax in Tunisia.
There has been a big rise in the number of people attempting to cross the water from North Africa to Italy this year.
According to IOM data, over 2000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean so far in 2023, most having done so on the Central Mediterranean route.
Around 30 people are missing feared dead after two shipwrecks over the weekend off Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island and often the destination for boats carrying migrants and refugees from North Africa.
ANSA
