By the end of the medieval period, the island became a dependency of the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1553, Barbary pirates from North Africa under the command of the Ottoman Empire raided Lampedusa, and carried off 1,000 captives into slavery. As a result of pirate attacks, the island became uninhabited. In 1565, Don García de Toledo made a brief stop at Lampedusa while leading a relief force to break the Great Siege of Malta. In subsequent centuries, the Hospitaller fleet which was based in Malta sometimes used Lampedusa's harbour as a shelter from bad weather or from corsairs.