More than 700 migrants are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean
Sea in the last few days as they tried to reach Europe in smuggling
boats, according to the U.N. refugee agency. One of the victims is
believed to have been a migrant woman who was decapitated after a rope
tying two boats together was cut by a trafficker, creating a deadly
whiplash effect. A boat that sunk on Wednesday left 100 people dead and 45 bodies were
recovered from a shipwreck on Friday. In addition, the UNHCR and Save
the Children have been told that another vessel, carrying at least 500
people, sank without trace in the middle of the Mediterranean on
Thursday, bringing the combined death toll to at least 645.
“We’ll never know the exact number, we’ll never know their identity, but
survivors tell that over 500 human beings died,” Carlotta Sami, UNHRC
spokeswoman, said on Twitter.
Survivors who were rescued at sea and brought to ports in Sicily told
officials that Thursdayโs disaster involved two boats โ the first one,
carrying around 500 migrants, was towing the second, which was also
carrying about 500 people.
When the second vessel began to take on water and sink, the alleged
captain of the first boat, a Sudanese man, cut the ow rope, causing it
to whiplash and hit a migrant woman in the upper body, taking off her
head.
The second boat then sank, taking down with it most of the migrants, who
were packed tightly into the hold, as is usually the case with voyages
organised by the pitiless trafficking gangs who operate along the Libyan
coast.
The Sudanese man was arrested on his arrival in the port of Pozzallo
along with three other suspected people traffickers, Italian media
reports said.
“We tried everything to stop the water, to bail it out of the boat,” a
Nigerian girl told cultural mediators, according to La Stampa daily.
“We used our hands, plastic glasses. For two hours we fought against the
water but it was useless. It began to flood the boat, and those below
deck had no chance. Women, men, children, many children, were trapped,
and drowned,” she said.
The dead included around 40 children, including babies, survivors said.
Good weather and calm seas has resulted in a sharp increase in the
number of boats making the crossing from Libya to Italy.
Source: AP,REUTERS/AFP
