EU bosses to meet on migrant crisis today
Print Edition
European Union leaders will today head into a summit on the Mediterranean migrant crisis under pressure to act after survivors laid bare the full horror of last weekend’s catastrophic shipwreck.
Allegations of callous disregard for African, Asian and Arab lives are pushing Europe’s bosses to come up with a concrete response to a disaster in which 800 people are feared to have died off Libya.
The vast majority of those on board were locked in the hold or the middle deck of the 20-metre boat when it capsized in the early hours of Sunday following a collision with a Portuguese cargo ship responding to its distress signal.
Only 28 survivors and 24 bodies were recovered and the lucky few say there were hundreds on board, spread over three levels.
“Those who had the least money were stuffed into the hold at the bottom, and locked inside,” according to a Bangladeshi teenager identified as Abdirizzak.
When the first collision happened, scenes of pure terror ensued, he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera.
“Everyone was screaming, pushing, punching, elbowing — terrified. From below we could hear those who were locked in shouting ‘Help, Help!’
“I don’t know how but somehow we managed to swim outside just in time before the boat went down.”
EU governments have already agreed to double the resources available to a maritime border patrol mission, but that has been attacked as too little, too late by refugee and rights groups.
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