Italy arrests 5 over Libya migrant shipwreck

Another call came for rescue at 5pm Irish time – 375 more people needed to be taken from Italian vessel the Mimbelli. Italy has arrested five North African men in connection with the incident, on suspicion of multiple homicide and human trafficking.

A total of 125 people were rescued from the boat – 92 men, 26 women and seven children.

Rescuers said they feared at least 100 people were trapped below deck when the boat overturned, and would have immediately drowned. Those in the hold paid about half as much as those above. Some anti-immigration politicians in Europe contend the rescue operations only encourage more migrants to tempt their fate at sea. More than 400 migrants were rescued by Italian and Irish ships.

“As Italy reeled from the latest disaster, the navy said it had not given up on attempts to recover the bodies of victims of a previous shipwreck in April, in which 800 people were feared drowned”.

More than two-thousand migrants and refugees have died so far this year trying to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 during the whole of last year, according to the worldwide Organisation for Migration.

Knife-wielding traffickers sealed migrants into the hull of a boat which sank off Libya, condemning them to drown after slashing or thrashing them depending on their ethnicity, according to survivor testimony reported Friday.