Italian police have arrested two suspected human traffickers among the survivors of the migrant boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, as the UN said 800 people were killed in the Mediterranean’s worst migrant disaster.
They said they had detained a Tunisian man believed to be the captain of the vessel and a Syrian allegedly a member of the ship’s crew, taken from a group of 27 haggard survivors who arrived in the Sicilian port of Catania on Monday evening. Both face charges of human trafficking.
Meanwhile, under-fire EU ministers agreed on a 10-point plan to double the resources available to the current EU border surveillance mission Triton, as the UN’s refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration recounted what those onboard had witnessed.
“We can say that 800 are dead,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said yesterday, citing the survivors’ accounts of the deadly crossing.
Those who escaped with their lives described to officials the moment the 20m trawler carrying them capsized after a Portuguese merchant ship approached the vessel, causing a stampede.
“There were a little over 800 people on board, including children aged between 10 and 12. There were Syrians, about 150 Eritreans, Somalians... They had left Tripoli at about 8am on Saturday,” Sami said.
The survivors hailed from Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Somalia, Eritrea and Bangladesh, and all had been taken to nearby holding centers, she added.
One other survivor was taken to hospital in Catania, on Sicily’s east coast.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini on Monday had unveiled plans to tackle the growing migrant crisis after telling member states they had “no more excuses” not to act.
Even as EU foreign and interior ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss ways to stem the flood of people trying to reach Europe, the International Organization for Migration said it had received a distress call from another boat, but cautioned against concluding this was another disaster in the making.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that Italy’s coast guard had asked merchant shipping to come to the aid of two boats off the Libyan coast with up to 450 migrants on board after they sought help.
Meanwhile, the police in Greece reported three people killed, including a child, after a boat coming from Turkey sank off the island of Rhodes.
Dramatic footage showed people trying to reach survivors huddled on a piece of wreckage as they were being swept towards rocks.
The police said that 93 people were rescued alive.
Europe’s southern shores have been swamped over the past two weeks with migrants fleeing war and hardship, mostly via conflict-wracked Libya.
More than 11,000 migrants have been rescued by Italian authorities since the middle of last week alone and current trends suggest last year’s total of 170,000 landing in Italy is likely to be exceeded this year.
Unveiling the 10-point action plan, Mogherini said the EU had to live up to its humanitarian values and commitments toward migrants, adding: “To send them back is another way of killing them.”
First on the list, ministers agreed the current EU border surveillance mission Triton should be increased to extend its range and capabilities on the bloc’s southern flank.
Triton replaced Italy’s own Mare Nostrum mission, which Rome scrapped late last year in protest that its EU partners would not share the burden.
The EU would also try to capture or destroy human-trafficking boats and increase cooperation across the board, the European Commission said.
The bloc would also offer a “voluntary pilot project on resettlement, providing a number of places to persons in need of protection,” a key but small step forward in spreading the problem.
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