4 hours agoBoat floods in the Mediterranean, 48 immigrants die
Periskopi(8 years ago)
(8 years ago)Tragedy in the middle again. At least 48 immigrants died after their boat was flooded on the eastern coast of Tunisia. About 60 people were rescued from coastal guards. The country has become an important route for immigrants trying to cross into Europe. This migration comes to save human traffickers [...]
Tragedy in the middle again. At least 48 immigrants died after their boat was flooded on the eastern coast of Tunisia. About 60 people were rescued from coastal guards.
The country has become an important route for immigrants trying to cross into Europe. This migration comes to save human traffickers in Libya who have enslaved, tortured and killed immigrants regularly.
On the last boat were 180 people, among whom 100 Tunisians, the country's Interior Ministry said.
The boat was 5 thousand from the Kerkennah Islands and 16 miles from the town of Sfax, the ministry said. Rescue operations were suspended Sunday evening, but will resume Monday morning, officials said.
A survivor told Reuters that the captain had abandoned the ship after it began diving to escape arrest by the coast guard. Another survivor has indicated that the ship had a maximum capacity of 90, about half the number of people on board.
“We could touch the water with our hands and the water was coming towards the boat,” he says. The “those who could leave, left while the others drowned. We stayed there until five o'clock in the morning, then the fishermen came to help us, and then the army” arrived.
The unemployed Tunisiaans and other Africans often seek to cross the Mediterranean Sea on improvised ships from Tunisia to Sicily, Italy. Meanwhile, Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvin, the same day the boat flood took place, during a visit to Sicily, said the island could no longer be the “refugee camp of Europe”.
