The Worst Ever Migrant Tragedy. From La Repubblica:
The traffickers had packed more than 700 immigrants like animals on a 20-meter old wooden fishing boat and set them sailing across the Mediterranean from a point east of Tripoli, Libya. One of them had a satellite telephone and alerted the Italian National Center of the Coast Guard arund midnight Italian tme on Sunday. The voice was not agitated. It just said, " We are at sea, help us." WIth GPS the Coast was able to locate them about 70 kilometers off the Libyan coast in the Canale di Sicilia and redirected a Portuguese merchant ship, the King Jacob, to offer help. When the ship approached the fishing boat, all the immigrants ran to one side to wave at its approach. This made their fishing boat flip. So far 49 people have been saved and survivors say that more than 700 had drowned.
The traffickers had packed more than 700 immigrants like animals on a 20-meter old wooden fishing boat and set them sailing across the Mediterranean from a point east of Tripoli, Libya. One of them had a satellite telephone and alerted the Italian National Center of the Coast Guard arund midnight Italian tme on Sunday. The voice was not agitated. It just said, " We are at sea, help us." WIth GPS the Coast was able to locate them about 70 kilometers off the Libyan coast in the Canale di Sicilia and redirected a Portuguese merchant ship, the King Jacob, to offer help. When the ship approached the fishing boat, all the immigrants ran to one side to wave at its approach. This made their fishing boat flip. So far 49 people have been saved and survivors say that more than 700 had drowned.