Scrambling for their lives, yet more victims of the traffickers
Terrifying scenes as 400 drown when migrant boat goes down in the Med
AS they cling desperately to the upturned prow of a sinking fishing boat, a watery death awaits them.
All the terrified African migrants can do is draw on every last ounce of strength and pray for a miracle as yet another tragedy unfolds in the Mediterranean.
Yet even when help finally arrived after a small aircraft spotted them close to Misurata, Libya, and alerted rescuers who rushed to their aid, the ordeal did not end.
A life raft rapidly became overwhelmed by numbers as they clambered aboard it, then crumpled and folded, casting them back into the sea.
The last few were left clinging to each other, some naked, terror on all their faces. Yet even then, they may have been the lucky ones – many of their fellow travellers, friends or family did not survive.
Many were dragged down with the ship because they were unable to escape from below deck in time.
Reports suggested that up to 400 passengers drowned in the tragedy, which happened in April, with fewer than 50 surviving.
Already this year traffickers have sent an estimated 1,770 men, women and children to their deaths, packed into overcrowded and unseaworthy boats.
Also in April around 800 perished when their fishing boat sank. A Portuguese cargo ship attempted a rescue but there were only 28 survivors.
These images emerged as a former people trafficker claimed some of the shipwrecks are set up deliberately by smuggling gangs.
The trafficker, who turned supergrass after being arrested, said some boats are deemed ‘disposable’ and do not even have the capacity to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa, the closest European landfall to Africa.
The closer the Western navies get to the departure points in Libya, the more boats can be used – even those that can barely float, he said. If the boats sink there is no loss because
the passage is paid in advance, he explained. Traffickers made an estimated £1.2billion last year.
Tragedies act as a ‘bait’ to entice the European navies back to Libya, the smuggler told prosecutors, according to Espresso magazine which first published these pictures.
The Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Bulwark has already saved hundreds of migrants since being deployed in the region in late April. In the coming weeks Britain is to take before the United Nations EU proposals to launch a naval mission destroying the traffickers’ boats before they set off from Libya.
Already this year around 40,000 migrants have landed in Italy, with the summer hardly under way.
Save the Children chief Justin Forsyth said last night: ‘People make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean with their children because they feel like it is their only chance of survival. If we are to stem the flow of people coming to Europe, we have to tackle the root causes of this migration – war, persecution and extreme poverty.’