Migrants rescued by LE Niamh ‘heavily traumatised’

The truly horrific details of some the migrants emerged today as many told police and the life-saving crews of the LE Niamh that they were stabbed and attacked during the perilous journey.

Also on Wednesday, 94 people on board a rubber boat were rescued in a separate operation, coastguards said.

ROME (AP) – Survivors of a migrant boat that capsized off Libya as rescuers approached told investigators that smugglers armed with knives forced people to stay in the trawler’s hold, increasing fears that more than 200 had been trapped inside and drowned, officials in Sicily said Friday.

Italian Navy rescues boat filled with refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean past year.

Almost 400 migrants were rescued on Thursday after their boat run into trouble off the Libyan coast a day after a similar disaster killed at least 25 migrants and left dozens missing in the same area, Italian reports said.

So far, 25 bodies have been recovered from the water but it is thought as many as 200 may have drowned, with the search continuing.

In that case, it was a Tunisian trafficker who allegedly drove the boat into the side of a Portuguese cargo ship coming its rescue, sparking panic and causing the migrant vessel to capsize.

“What happened here was because the boat was so overloaded, and the conditions were such that the boat started taking on water and it listed to one side, capsized and sank, all in the space of two minutes”, Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney said on Irish state radio RTE on Thursday.

Along with the Irish and Italian navies, the agency – also known as MSF or Medecins Sans Frontieres – rescued over 370 people on Wednesday after the migrants’ boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.

“People are still crossing the central Mediterranean in their thousands nearly every week to seek safety and better lives in Europe, so fatal incidents at sea are going to remain a tragic reality”, said Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty worldwide.

He said that by the end of July, around 224,000 refugees and migrants had arrived in Europe by sea.

Gil noted these fishing boats favored by smugglers have two lower decks. Others are feared to have gone down with the boat.

In a joint statement released on Thursday, European Commission (EC) First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, High-Representative and Vice-President Federica Mogherini and Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said that “just one life lost is one too many”. In addition, measures were agreed to accelerate the process of deporting refugees back to Africa and the crisis regions of the Middle East.