Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
{vb:raw ozzmodz_postquote}:
Get the news
Log In or Subscribe to skip
478 6 [h=6]Share This Story![/h]Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about
[h=4]Sicilian prosecutors arrest captain, crewmember of migrant ship[/h]European Union officials gathered for an emergency meeting Monday, after hundreds of people are believed to have died in what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant disaster.
{# #}
[h=4]Sent![/h]A link has been sent to your friend's email address.
[h=4]Posted![/h]A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.
[h=6]Join the Nation's Conversation[/h]To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs
[h=2]UP NEXT[/h][h=2]03[/h]
As news of a boat believed to be crowded with 700 migrants aboard capsizes, Pope Franics and UN officials are asking the international community to step in and help search and rescue efforts. (April 19) AP
Italian Coast Guard officers carry off a migrant's body from the ship Bruno Gregoretti in Valletta's Grand Harbor on April 20.(Photo: Lino Azzopardi, AP)
The Tunisian captain and a Syrian crewmember of the boat that capsized off the coast of Libya with hundreds of people aboard were arrested in what may be the deadliest migrant tragedy ever, prosecutors in Sicily said Tuesday.
Assistant Prosecutor Rocco Liguori said the two men were charged with illegal immigration, and the captain was charged with reckless multiple homicide in relation to the sinking, the Associated Press reported.
Both men were arrested aboard the rescue boat that brought 27 survivors to Sicily from the weekend shipwreck, which authorities say may have killed 700 to 900 people.
The United Nations refugee agency, after its representatives interviewed survivors, confirmed that 800 migrants died in the disaster, Agence France-Presse reported,
"We can say that 800 are dead," said Carlotta Sami, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy.
The European Union, meanwhile, agreed Monday to expand its Mediterranean Sea rescue effort to staunch the flood of migrants fleeing to European shores that has resulted in hundreds of deaths in the past week.
The EU also will provide more funds for migrant interdiction, seek to catch and destroy smugglers' ships and devote more resources to process, return and resettle migrants, said EU Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dmitris Avramopoulous.
Avramopoulous' plan puts off a decision on dealing with the source of most of the illegal human shipments: political chaos in Libya, the launching point for many of the migrants' voyages.
USA TODAY
Italians on tiny island torn over flood of migrants
USA TODAY
Voyage across Mediterranean is harrowing and deadly
The EU's emergency response came as search-and-rescue operations continue for the 700 to 950 migrants missing after their boat capsized late Saturday off the Libyan coast. Monday, authorities responded to reports of other migrant ships in distress — two off Libya and a third boat that ran aground near Greece.
An additional 400 migrants are likely to have drowned in a capsizing April 13.
A great majority of the migrants fleeing economic and political hardship in Africa travel through Libya, where civil war and a breakdown in government have allowed criminal smuggling gangs to operate freely.
Rescued migrants are aboard an Italian Coast Guard ship in Valletta's Grand Harbor, Malta, on April, 20.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Ivan Consiglio, European Pressphoto Agency)
Details emerged about the weekend disaster when Italian prosecutors said hundreds of migrants were locked below deck, unable to escape when the boat capsized.
At an earlier news conference in Catania, Sicily, prosecutor Giovanni Salvi said, "A few hundred were forced into the hold, and they were locked in and prevented from coming out." He said hundreds more were locked on a second level of the boat, which had hundreds of migrants squeezed onto its upper deck.
Salvi said the migrants rushed to one side of the boat as they saw a Portuguese-flagged container vessel approach, the promise of rescue contributing to the disaster.
The EU said it will work with Libya's neighbors and present a comprehensive plan in May to address "structural problems" related to migration, Avramopoulous and EU representative Federica Mogherini said after Monday's emergency meeting in Luxembourg.
The EU meeting followed appeals from Pope Francis and human rights groups for a greater humanitarian effort to help the tens of thousands of migrants traveling the dangerous waters. Because of budgetary constraints, Italy turned over that task last year to the EU, which scaled back the operation.
The new plan will expand the EU's interdiction effort from close to European shores to Mediterranean waters closer to Libya.
Other European leaders called Monday for action to stabilize that country.
Britain's David Cameron, Italy's Matteo Renzi and Maltese leader Joseph Muscat agreed that criminal networks behind human traffickers were primarily to blame.
"The highest priority has to be action to disrupt their activities," the three prime ministers said, according to a statement issued by the British Foreign Office.
USA TODAY
Europe grapples with deadly flow of migrants
Cameron stressed the need for a comprehensive approach to the migration crisis, including "action to stabilize migrants' home countries," the statement said. All three leaders said establishing a national unity government in Libya is an essential element of a sustainable solution.
Muscat told BBC radio earlier that solving the crisis in Libya is key to preventing the tragedies. "We have what is possibly becoming a failed state at our doorstep," he said. "We have criminal gangs having a heyday organizing these trips in rickety boats. We need to get the Libyan factions together to form some sort of government of almost national unity."
An Italian Coast Guard vessel carrying 27 survivors from the 66-foot, capsized boat headed toward Sicily on Monday. The bodies of 24 people pulled from the water were taken to the island of Malta to be buried, the Associated Press reported. The Maltese army said the victims were all adult men.
Renzi said Monday that Italian and Maltese ships responded to two more migrant emergencies near the Libyan coast. In a separate incident, at least three people, including a child, were killed and 93 rescued when a wooden boat carrying dozens of migrants who had departed from Turkey ran aground off the eastern Aegean island of Rhodes, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier in the day, the International Organization for Migration said its Rome office received a distress call from the Mediterranean about three boats in need of help.
The organization said the caller reported 300 people on his boat and about 20 dead and said the vessel was sinking, the AP reported. There were no details about the location of the distress call.
Contributing: Jane Onyanga-Omara
0) { %> 0) { %>
0) { %>
Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed