Boat missing off Italy's Lampedusa with 40 migrants on board

Search efforts for a boat that went missing off the coast of Italy's Lampedusa island with 40 migrants on board continued on Sunday without success, according to local media.

According to the Italian Rai News, search and rescue efforts began after Alarm Phone, an independent support group for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to EU nations, said on Saturday that it lost contact with the boat the previous day.

Seventeen hours and three missions of search flights by Frontex, the bloc's border agency, were fruitless as there have been no sign of the castaways, the report said.

On Saturday, Alarm Phone said on X: "Where are they? Yesterday morning, we lost contact to a boat in distress, carrying between 36 to 45 people travelling toward Lampedusa."

"Authorities were alerted but do not give out any information and we have so far not heard about their arrival on the Italian island," it added.