240 die in a week

More than 240 people have died in migrant boat sinkings in the Mediterranean this week, officials said yesterday as horrifying new testimony emerged from survivors of another tragedy.

Departures from Libya are continuing unabated despite worsening weather in the Mediterranean, with over 3,200 people rescued from crowded and unseaworthy dinghies since Saturday. The total is the same as for the whole month of November 2015.

The new death toll was based on information gathered by UNHCR from 15 survivors, who said some 135 people had drowned or lost when a dinghy sank on Monday.Some 95 others are presumed dead after another dinghy sank on Tuesday.

Italy's coastguard said 580 people had been brought to safety yesterday in five separate rescue operations.

The survivors of Monday's shipwreck off Libya -- overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan Africa -- arrived yesterday in the port of Catania in Sicily, where they spoke of their ordeal. They had set off from Libya on Sunday night with about 150 people on board, "so there would be about 135 missing," UNHCR spokesman Iosta Ibba told AFP.

"Their dinghy, which was already in a poor state, began taking on water several hours after they set off. It then overturned, tipping all 150 into the sea. Only 15 managed to survive by clinging to a part of the vessel which floated," he said.

"They stayed like that several hours before help arrived," he added.

The latest deaths lift the total number of migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year to just over 4,500, according to a UNHCR count based on bodies recovered and survivor accounts.