According to the Italian ANSA news agency, three groups of migrants and refugees – 68, 15 and 54, respectively (total 137 people) – landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa between midnight and early morning on Wednesday.
The two large groups, made up of Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Eritreans, Pakistanis, Syrians and Ethiopians, said they set out from Zuwara, Libya, and each paid $5,000 or €6,000 in tolls.
The smallest group left Sfax, Tunisia, on Tuesday morning and said they paid 1,500 euros each for the crossing.
The group of 54 people later reported that one of the two outboard motors on the 7-metre-long boat exploded while underway.
There were reportedly no deaths or missing people in the incident, and the boat was later captured by a Japan Coast Guard patrol boat and accompanied to the port.
On Tuesday, 482 migrants and refugees landed in 14 separate waves on the small Sicilian island, closer to Tunisia than Italy, in search of safety and a better future in Europe.
Following the new arrivals, there were 619 people in the island’s migrant reception centers, or hotspots, on Wednesday morning, including 57 unaccompanied minors.
Around 300 people were scheduled to be transferred from the island to mainland Sicily on a passenger ferry bound for Porto Empedocle on Wednesday night.