Mediterranean rescuers find three sisters dead on overcrowded migrant boat

Italian Coast Guard personnel evacuate migrants from the vessel NADIR operated by the organisation RESQSHIP, off the coast of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. Picture: Jan Salmen/RESQSHIP via AP

Three young sisters have died after an overcrowded rubber dinghy took on water in bad weather while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, a German non-profit organisation has reported.

The sisters from war-torn Sudan, who were 9, 11 and 17-years-old, are the latest known victims of a Mediterranean migration route that has claimed more than 30,000 lives since the International Organisation for Migration started counting in 2014.