CATANIA , Italy, Aug. 18 (Ed Adamczyk) — Eight people were arrested in Italy Tuesday in connection with the sinking of a boat off the Libyan coast in which 49 refugees died of suffocation.
The overcrowded fishing boat was attempting to carry refugees from Libya to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. The captain and seven crew members allegedly blocked the victims from leaving the ship’s hold as it sank. The Italian Navy and a Norwegian ship rescued 312 survivors.
The Norwegian ship took on the immigrants and arrived at Catania, Sicily, where Michelangelo Patane, the Catania prosecutor, said, the crew prevented “people from emerging from the hold, where the air was unbreathable because there were so many people down there, along with the gas fumes from the ship’s motors. The crew’s behavior was grave and reprehensible because they blocked people by kicking them, punching them, hitting them with belts on the head when they tried to emerge from the hold.”
The eight men – who identified themselves as four Libyans, three Moroccans and one Syrian – are accused of multiple homicide.
Marcello Cardona, Catania police chief, said survivors provided valuable information that could put the traffickers in prison. Among those rescued were 116 people from Morocco; Cardona noted it was the first time his observed so many Moroccans arriving by sea, suggesting it could be a new development in the smuggling of refugees.
