Italian fisherman thought survivors’ sobs were seagulls
LAMPEDUSA, Ital y —Survivors of a fiery shipwreck that killed more than 110 African migrants clung for hours to empty water bottles in the dark, trying desperately to keep themselves from drowning, an Italian fisherman said Friday.
Lampedusa resident Vito Fiorino said he was the first to come across dozens of migrants scattered in the Mediterranean Sea while he was on an early morning fishing expedition.
At first he thought their weak cries were that of seagulls.
Then he saw what terrible shape they were in, coated with gasoline from the smugglers’ boat, barely clothed or wearing rags.
Some didn’t have the strength to grab the lifesaving ring thrown to them. Once on board, they told him they had been fighting to stay alive for three hours.
“It was a scene from a film, something you hope never to see in life,” he told The Associated Press.
Fiorino said he alerted the Italian coast guard and other boats when he came upon desperate migrants just before 7 a.m. Thursday. He and his friends lifted 47 people up onto his 10-metre boat.
Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island 113 kilometres off Tunisia, is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland and has been at the centre of wave after wave of illegal immigration.
On Friday, Italian coast guard boats carrying divers headed out from Lampedusa to search for more bodies, but choppy waters hampered their efforts.
The scope of the tragedy at Lampedusa — with 111 bodies recovered so far, 155 people rescued and up to an estimated 250 still missing, according to officials — has prompted outpourings of grief.
Italian officials demanded a comprehensive European Union immigration policy to deal with the tens of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and strife in Africa and the Middle East.
Pope Francis called Friday a “day of tears.”