At Least 80 People Dead Including a Child and a Pregnant Woman after Migrant Boat Carrying 500 Passengers Catches Fire and Sinks off Coast of Italy
- The migrant boat sank off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa this morning
- More than a hundred people were left in the water, officials said
- Dead include a child of three and a pregnant woman
By Daily Mail UK, 3 October 2013
At least 62 people have died after a ship carrying African migrants toward Italy caught fire and sank off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, spilling hundreds of passengers into the sea.
Antonio Candela, the government's health commissioner for Palermo, told Sky TG24 that 82 bodies have been found and that search and rescue operations are continuing.
So far 141 people have been rescued, but the boat is believed to have been carrying as many as 500 people.
At least 82 people have died after a ship carrying African migrants toward Italy caught fire
and sank off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, spilling hundreds of passengers into the sea
It's the second deadly grounding this week following Monday's incident when 13 men drowned while trying to reach southern Sicily, just a few metres from the shore.
Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini told Sky Tg24 that so far 82 bodies had been found and that search and rescue operations were continuing.
She says the dead included a child of about age three and a pregnant woman.
Coast guard official Floriana Segreto said that rescue operations were continuing.
Victims: Immigrants drowned off the coast of Sicily
Horror: Rescuers pause to pay their respects to the victims of the tragedy
Four coast guard and police vessels and two helicopters were in the area.
Lampedusa is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland and is the frequent destination for smugglers' boats.
THE DESPERATE JOURNEY TO ITALY
Quote:
Sicily and the islands surrounding are hotspots for illegal immigrants arriving by sea from Tunisia, Libya and sub-Saharan Africa hoping for a better quality of life and employment.
Recently, following continued violence in the country, a growing number of Syrian immigrants have fled to the region hoping for protection from the raging civil war.
Often the immigrant's desperate journey ends in tragedy.
Last month six migrants died after they jumped out of a boat off the coast of Sicily.
Some 100 migrants where aboard a boat when it hit a sandbank close to the shore.
Six perished as they tried to swim to land.
In July seven drowned after they tried to hold onto a fishing cage which was being towed to shore off the coast of Sicily.
|
.