On October 3rd an overloaded ship carrying as many as 500 African migrants sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 130 (as of this date, Italian authorities were still looking for survivors). The ship had left Misrata, Libya and had been heading toward Italy, following a route which has been regularly used for transporting migrants looking for a new life in Europe. Though similar tragedies had occurred before, none of have been of this scale.

In 2011 Alex Majoli and Patrick Zachmann documented the flow of migrants from Libya to Lampedusa and Sicily.