Shipwreck: Skipper blamed
CATANIA, Italy: Prosecutors blamed the Tunisian captain of a fishing boat for causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants locked below decks when his vessel capsized in the Mediterranean, in the weekend shipwreck that has shocked Europe.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, arrested under suspicion of multiple homicide, had steered his severely overloaded boat into a collision with a merchant ship that was coming to its rescue.
Only 28 survivors have been brought to Italy from the hundreds of mainly African and Bangladeshi migrants on board. Police have quoted the survivors giving death tolls that range from 400 to 950 in what appears to have been the worst disaster ever among migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe.
So few survived because most of the migrants on board, including women and children, had been locked in the hold and lower decks of the three-deck fishing boat, said Catania chief prosecutor Giovanni Salvi.
That also made it impossible so far to reach the bodies and verify the toll.
The captain has been arrested on suspicion of multiple homicide and peoplesmuggling, and he and his 25-year-old Syrian first mate, Mahmud Bikhit, are also suspected of causing a shipwreck. It was not
without reducing the numbers attempting it.