No respite in migrant crisis
The captain of a migrant vessel that sank off the coast of Libya on the weekend, killing more than 800 people, crashed his ship into a rescue vessel, according to accounts of the tragedy that emerged on Tuesday. Below is a recap of the developments in the
Survivors told aid workers that Saturday night’s wreck was caused when one of the smugglers crashed the boat against the Portuguese-flagged King Jacob container ship that had responded to a distress call, according to United Nations refugee agency spokeswoman Carlotta Sami. “The survivors said that the person who was steering the boat, their smuggler, was navigating badly, and he did a bad move that made it crash against the bigger ship,” Sami said by telephone from Sicily. Prosecutors said that after the trawler’s captain, a 27-year-old Tunisian identified as Mohammed Ali Malek, rammed the Portuguese vessel, terrified migrants rushed to one side of the overcrowded boat, which was already unbalanced from the collision. The trawler pitched in the water before finally tipping over and sinking. The captain was being investigated for multiple counts of manslaughter and causing a shipwreck. Two suspected smugglers who arrived in Italy overnight were also detained for investigation of aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
THE TOLL
The UNHCR said Tuesday that more than 800 people were believed to have drowned in the incident, making it the deadliest such disaster in the Mediterranean. The International Organization for Migration said the rate of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean this year is far higher than in 2014, when a total of 3,279 migrants died. That, in turn, was much higher than in 2013, when around 700 people died, the agency said. So far this year, 1,776 have died, according to the UNHCR. The 2015 death toll “could well top 30,000,” said Joel Millman, the IOM spokesman. “We just want to make sure people understand how much more ... rapid these deaths have been coming this year than last year.”
THE CHILDREN
The latest incident has also highlighted the plight of child migrants. “We estimate some 50 children died in the hold with their mothers,” said Andrea Iacomini, Italian spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF. Child migrants who do make it to Europe alive face an uncertain fate. Of the 12,000 children who arrived at so-called welcome centres in Italy this year, about 3,500 have disappeared without a trace, Iacomini said from Rome. “We don’t even have these kids’ fingerprints,” he said. “We believe many end up in the hands of the mafia and other criminal gangs, often acting as couriers for drug traffickers.”
THE PLAN
Spurred by the massive loss of lives, the European Union’s executive arm has proposed a 10-point plan for dealing with the unprecedented migrant influx. Combating the smugglers by arresting the ringleaders and destroying their boats is one key component of the plan. Italy has arrested more than 1,000 smugglers, most of them the boats’ navigators and not the masterminds. The plan also calls for more money and assets for EU operations in the Mediterranean, such as the Triton border mission, as well as beefing up the processing system for asylum seekers and considering emergency relocations that would ease pressure on countries like Italy, Greece and Malta. The plan will be fleshed out at an EU crisis summit on Thursday.
THE PRICIER WAY
Not all those turning to smugglers to escape conflict or violence are risking their lives in unseaworthy boats. Police in Ragusa, a Sicilian port town, said they arrested three Syrians connected to a Turkish-flagged luxury yacht that charged passengers $8,500 for the trip from Turkey to Sicily. Among the Syrian and Palestinian passengers were 23 children. Selfies and other photos snapped by passengers helped police identify the smugglers, police said in a statement. They estimated that the organizers were paid some $800,000 in total for the trip. Authorities discovered the yacht was a smuggling boat when two merchant ships were called out to aid a boat in distress.