At least 11 would-be migrants trying to reach Italy from Africa died when a fishing boat containing some 160 people sank just off the shore of Sicily, southern Italy, police said on 11. September 2005.
"Eleven bodies have been recovered, some were on the beach, others were in the sea," an officer of the Carabinieri police told Reuters. One of the dead was a six-month-old baby. Around 50 more people were feared missing, he added.
The Coast Guard said it rescued 74 people from the sinking boat and that 25 others had been found alive. "They said they were Eritrean but some of them looked north African," said Raffaele Macauda, head of the Coastguard at the port town of Gela. Survivors told Macauda they had been sailing for three days after setting off from Libya.
Two of the survivors were arrested on suspicion of being in charge of the boat. Thousands of migrants cross the Mediterranean from Africa each year, often crammed into small wooden fishing vessels, hoping to make a new life in the European Union. Many arrive in Sicily or on smaller Italian islands even further south.
Source: Reuters
