Migrant boat sinking kills 82
82 people have died so far after the boat carrying migrants from Africa sank off the Sicilian island. So far 82 bodies have been recovered the death toll was rising as they laid the bodies out on the harbor. The coast guard said that it seemed there were between 400 and 500 migrant on the boat when it sank and 150 people have been rescued so far. Thousands of migrants from Africa arrive in Italy unsafe in overcrowded vessels each year. Most of them go to Lampedusa a small island 113 kilometers from the coast on Tunisia. Number have grown a lot this year due to the civil war in Syria. Most Syrians have arrived on the eastern coast of Sicily from Egypt. The submerged vessel was about 20 meters on length and had been identified in the water after it caught fire and sank. Coastguard official Floriana Segreto said that rescue operations were still continuing. A fishing boat set the alarm around 7:20 am local time and began pulling people out of the water before coast guard vessels arrived to the scene. A total of 117 migrants were recovered, including 20 women and four children. I think that more needs to be done about unsafe vessels. You can only fit so many people on a vessel and trying to do more than what it's made to is a disaster waiting to happen.
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| Rescue workers carrying the body of a drowned migrant. |
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