Italy’s coastguard said Sunday it rescued 91 migrants from a drifting boat off the island of Lampedusa, but discovered two men dead below deck. Several survivors were found in serious condition, with some airlifted to hospitals for treatment, authorities said.
The boat was drifting some 16 nautical miles from the Italian island when it was located by an EU border agency plane, the coastguard said in a statement, adding it had dispatched two patrol boats.
"During the inspection of the below-deck areas, additional migrants in serious health conditions and two bodies, both male, were discovered," it said.
The survivors, 85 men, one woman and five presumed minors, were disembarked and some taken to hospital by helicopter.
Italian news agency Ansa said that 14 of the migrants were in serious condition, with three requiring intubation.
Ansa said the two migrants died after inhaling petrol while below deck, with 14 others ill for the same reason.
The migrants came from Pakistan, Eritrea and Somalia, it said.
The waters off Lampedusa were the site of another migrant disaster on Friday, when about 20 people went missing after a shipwreck.
The coastguard said Friday that 11 people had been rescued, and one body was recovered, but the rest of the approximately 30 people from that boat were unaccounted for.
