Italy’s coast guard found twenty-five bodies in the hold of a boat coming from Libya on Monday.
The coast guard officials discovered the bodies of 25 young men after boarding the migrants’ boat less than a mile off the small Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to the North Africa than it is to the Italian mainland.
All the dead are believed to be Sub-Saharan Africans.
The 15-meter (50-foot) vessel carried 296 immigrants, including 36 women and 21 children, Coast Guard Commander Cosimo Nicastro said.
The causes of the 25 deaths were not clear, he added. Italian authorities are currently investigating the case.
“Some of them died from suffocation but some others were apparently beaten up by traffickers and members of the crew,” said Simona Moscarelli, an official with the International Organization for Migration whose colleagues in Lampedusa were conducting interviews with the survivors, some of which were traveling below deck with the dead.
More at the link above.
Those who do make it to Lampedusa, face dehumanizing and outright dangerous conditions at asylum seeker centers in Italy. I wrote about this a while ago at Tiger Beatdown. Sadly, it seems nothing has changed.
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