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180 dead in Saturday’s migrant boat disaster in Med: survivors

Four people died and nearly 180 are missing, presumed dead, after Saturday's migrant ship capsize in the Mediterranean, officials said on Tuesday after interviewing a handful of survivors. Humanitarian workers from International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Four people died and nearly 180 are missing, presumed dead, after Saturday’s migrant ship capsize in the Mediterranean, officials said on Tuesday after interviewing a handful of survivors.

Humanitarian workers from International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), recounted harrowing details of the latest major tragedy in waters off Libya after talking to four rescued passengers, two Eritreans and two Ethiopians, who arrived on Monday evening in the Sicilian port of Trapani.

The survivors, three men and one woman, were described as “traumatized and exhausted”.

They said their two-tier, wooden boat had left Libya on Friday with more 180 people packed on board, all of them originally from East Africa.

After five hours at sea, the engine cut out and the boat started to take on water. As it slowly sank, more and more of the people on board were submerged under water.

One of the survivors described his desperate effort to find his wife, who had taken a spot in the centre of the ship.

After hours in the water, the survivors were rescued on Saturday 30 nautical miles from the Libyan coast by a French boat operating as part of the European borders agency Frontex’s Operation Triton before being transferred to another Frontex ship, the Siem Pilot.

Siem Pilot, provided by the Norwegian coastguard, arrived in Trapani on Monday evening with the four survivors, four recovered corpses and 34 people rescued from another stricken migrant boat.

The latest deaths and rescues follow a record year for the number of migrants trying to reach Europe on the western Mediterranean route from north Africa to Italy.

Some 181,000 people were registered at Italian ports in 2016 while the UNHCR recorded more than 5,000 deaths and presumed deaths on all migrant routes across the Mediterranean.

Despite the mid-winter weather making crossings particularly perilous, the start of 2017 has brought no sign of departures slowing with some 2,300 migrants already registered in Italy since January 1st.

Source: AFP

 

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10 COMMENTS
  • Biniam January 19, 2017

    You get what you deserve in life and Eritreans deserve far more worse for being Italian/Arab slaves. Black Africans fight for their rights and to change their oppressive governments while the weak opportunist Eritrean slaves run and run to their shameful deaths.
    Where is the so called Eritrean heroism?? One mad man can’t keep you in captivity for ever!!

    • Aron January 19, 2017

      Are you a human being ?

      • AHMED SALEH !!! January 19, 2017

        TEREGAM-FITRET are selected humans under the command of SATAN orders who perform evil deeds . It is shame to talk trash at times when innocent lives perish in SEA some without trace .

    • PH January 19, 2017

      Biniam, we know what we deserve. being “Italian / Arab slaves? ” never been and will not be. The worst thing is when a slave search slave. In such, we in slaved by ethiopian called Isayas.

      • AHMED SALEH !!! January 19, 2017

        PH
        Haileselassiye regime destroyed the lives in lowlands and in highland Moslems .
        Menghistu regime destroyed the lives of young generation and the educated .
        Issayas regime repeats punishment against the lives of young generation .

        We live in a jungle with zombies who enjoy to watch killings and humans death .

    • Jon January 19, 2017

      Biniam there is silver lining between hatred and humanity,you can have a deep seated hatred towards the people of Eritrea but we are talking here about human catastrophe and you don’t seem to have a little bit of it.

      You are nothing but a subhuman Gala And a trashy mother Fucker.you don’t deserve even to call the name Eritrea let alone talking about the precious and invincible people of Eritrea.Fuck you ,Asshole

    • Anti-ethiopia January 21, 2017

      I am glad half of those who died are ethiopians(lower case is intentional).

  • PH January 19, 2017

    In this case I prefer to put an apeal to oll concerned, first of all, parents should aware the risk. Second, the first person who risk his life in this manner should understand as loser. Finally , simpaticaly offer same money? Hold it please

  • asgedom January 21, 2017

    My deepest condolences …Its sad…there are animals in Canada in the tundra their size is little bit smaller than rabbit and these animals what they do is very mysterious and uncommon. In certain seasons they march one after the other and fall down a ravine and commit suicide…why they march to their death in such a mass is unknown…but why Eritreans are marching to their death is a known fact…because of that idiot…living in Eritrea is very harsh and tough…that idiot has turned Eritrea for Eritreans worse than a prison cell … but Eritreans have a choice although it is refugee life.. to stay in neighboring countries for instance such as Ethiopia and Sudan…or the best advisable could be to stay in Eritrea and fight that idiot 1 man regime and destroy it…rights,diginity,pride,freedom are realizable only at ones home…I do not know why they are risking their lives day in day out to reach Europe?Europe is not even able to feed its hangry,give jobs its unemployed,give shelter its homeless people…the more Europes economy goes south the more Europeans are going to be more racist towards black man…and living is not going to be easy for us black people here in Europe…hope our children will have mercy on us… because of the dangers we are putting them into …instead of letting our children grow in Africa free roaring and pride like a lion,we bring them here in Europe to grow without pride and dignity with these nasty ,crude,immoral,Europeans.If the stupid Isayas Afewerki was stopped 20 years ago all the damages on our people and country could have been averted but it did not ,and here we are now ,leaking our wounds and harvesting what we planted.

    • Eri January 22, 2017

      Asgedom the problem in our country happen when traitors like you advocate economics sanctions and isolation against our people so we Eritrean can not develop our country a more traitors like you side with the dead animal now meles chenawi for keeping our country in war footing read Wikileaks’
      So if you are true Eritrean I doubt about it you should be ashamed of yourself
      You wished worst than that you criminal and I am sure day will come we will have our revenge traitors. .eritrea still standing still tall but woyane the architect of all this assault against our people is dying
      If you are Tigray always meddling in our internal affairs in the of Eritrean ,we’ll mind your own business

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