Dozens die in Mediterranean migrant tragedy
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AROUND 200 shocked survivors were plucked from the sea yesterday after their overloaded boat sank, claiming more than 30 lives in the latest deadly migrant tragedy to hit the Mediterranean.
The boat went down off Malta on Friday near the Italian island of Lampedusa, packed with 230 to 250 men, women and children, the Maltese navy said.
As the toll rose, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat warned the Mediterranean was in danger of becoming a “cemetery” for migrants desperate to reach Europe.
“The latest figure we have is 31” dead, a Maltese government spokesman said yesterday. The Italian navy earlier gave the figure of 34 dead.
Exhausted after a 10-hour journey from the wreck site, about 143 survivors arrived in Valetta yesterday morning on board a Maltese naval vessel. They were helped onto buses to be driven to shelters.
Some gave their nationality as Syrian and others said they were Palestinian, according to a Maltese government source.
Fifty-six more survivors were being escorted to Porto Empedocle in Sicily on an Italian naval vessel. Another nine were airlifted to Lampedusa, including a couple with a nine-month-old baby whose three-year-old brother drowned, emergency services said.
The sinking came just over a week after a similar tragedy killed more than 300 Africans, mostly Eritreans and Somalis, in the deadliest refugee disaster to date in the region, prompting the European Union to call for sea patrols.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the latest tragedy “a new and dramatic confirmation of the state of emergency.”
“We are just building a cemetery within our Mediterranean Sea,” his Maltese counterpart, Muscat, warned on Friday, calling for more help from the rest of Europe.
The Maltese and Italian navies dispatched ships and helicopters to the area, 100 kilometers south of Lampedusa and 110 kilometers from Malta.
European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstroem said she was following the rescue operations “with sadness and anxiety.”
Another two migrant boats were rescued in difficulty off Lampedusa this weekend, one carrying 87 people and the other 183, including 49 children, Italian media reported.
The European Commission has urged EU states to pledge aircraft, ships and funds for EU border guard service Frontex, whose budget has been cut.
The migrants in Friday’s disaster alerted the authorities using a satellite phone when their boat ran into difficulty in Maltese waters.
Bound for Lampedusa, the boat capsized after those aboard attempted to catch the attention of a military aircraft by gathering at one end of the vessel, the Maltese navy said.
Charities say that between 17,000 and 20,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach Europe over the past 20 years.
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