A two-year-old girl was confirmed dead after Italian coast guards rescued 42 migrants off Lampedusa

 On Monday night, a two-year-old girl was confirmed dead after Italian coast guards rescued 42 migrants off Lampedusa. Eight more were reported missing. More than 500 migrants on a fishing boat were also brought ashore by the coast guard.

According to reports in the Italian press, a metal boat carrying around 53 migrants set out from the Tunisian port of Sfax and sank just off the coast of Lampedusa on Monday (November 20) in the afternoon.

Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, speaking in parliament on Tuesday (November 21), said that "we rescued 42 people. But a two-year-old girl unfortunately died on the rescue vessel shortly before arriving at port."

The girl had been traveling with her parents, according to ANSA. The parents are believed to be two Guinean nationals who are currently at the hotspot in the Imbriacola district being assisted by Italian Red Cross psychologists. They have already identified their daughter's body and an autopsy will be carried out.

The rescued migrants were from Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Konakry and Mali, reported the Italian news portal TP24.

The Italian coast guard, which carried out the rescue operation, published a video of that and a second rescue operation, which took place off the coast of Lampedusa on Monday night.

The coast guard confirmed that a search was continuing for at least eight people reported missing. Planes and ships from the coast guard, the Italian border and tax police (Guardia di Finanza) and the European border force Frontex have been deployed. However, Vatican news on Tuesday reported that no one had yet been found.

The coast guard said in a press release that it had been alerted on Monday afternoon to the presence of migrants on top of cliffs at Capo Ponenente on Lampedusa. Unable to reach them by land, it sent out two motor boats.

They managed to save 42 people and a girl who was unconscious. "Medical personnel tried everything to resuscitate her, but unfortunately we were unable to," stated the press release. She was pronounced dead shortly before arriving at port.

The Italian AGI news agency reported that, according to survivors’ accounts, two children are thought to be among those missing.

On the regional Italian news portal agrigento notizie, two Lampedusan fisherman, Giuseppe and Salvatore Del Volgo, recount that they also picked up two young migrants, who they believe to be Ivorian, from the cliffs with their fishing boat.