Nearly 200 Tunisian migrants have arrived on the Italian island of
Lampedusa in the past three days as weather conditions improved.

Two boats carrying about 130 irregular migrants arrived early on
Monday morning. One boat with about 40 migrants had left from the
Tunisian island of Djerba, and the second boat carrying
approximately 90 migrants had departed from Zarzis.

Their arrival follows that of about another 53 irregular
migrants on Sunday 20 February on two boats which were intercepted
by Italian authorities.

The first boat, which arrived on Sunday morning carrying 13
migrants, had left from Djerba while the second with about 40
migrants departing from Sfax, arrived on Sunday evening.

Rough seas and storms had prevented boats from leaving Tunisia
last Friday but improved weather conditions and a calmer sea saw
the first arrival of the weekend when a boat carrying 13 Tunisians
arrived on the morning of 19th February. The migrants told IOM
staff on Lampedusa they had left from Djerba.

The migrants, all young male adults say they left Tunisia for
Europe for differing reasons. Although some left in the search for
work or protection, others say they wanted to join family already
in Europe, including one man who showed IOM staff a picture of his
young daughter with whom he wants to be reunited.

On the island are also people looking for family members
arriving from Tunisia, including one man who had come from France
desperately looking for his brother. His sibling is believed to
have left Tunisia on 11th February when some of the migrants died
in a shipwreck off the Tunisian coast. The man was asking IOM if
any bodies had been found. He had already been to Tunisia to search
for him but had found no trace of his brother.

Meanwhile, IOM staff also assisted an Egyptian minor who jumped
ship off the coast of Lampedusa. The boy, working on an Egyptian
fishing boat was found by IOM on the Lampedusa coastline,
half-naked and soaked through, searching for something to cover
himself with.

The 17-year-old boy was taken to the reception centre for
migrants on the island from where he will be taken to a special
centre for unaccompanied minors on Sicily.

Although Italian authorities had transferred several hundred
migrants from Lampedusa to centres elsewhere in Italy in the past
few days, there are now about 1,360 migrants still on the
island.

For further information please contact:

Flavio DiGiacomo

IOM Rome

Tel: +39 06 44 186 207 or +39 347 089 89 96

E-mail: "mailto:fdigiacomo@iom.int">fdigiacomo@iom.int

or

Jean Philippe Chauzy

IOM Geneva

Tel: +41 22 717 9361 or +41 79 285 4366

E-mail: "mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int

or

Jemini Pandya

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9486 or + 41 79 217 3374

E-mail: "mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int