Around 250 feared dead in Libya refugee boat sinking
World Bulletin / News Desk Around 250 African refugees are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean after a rescue boat found two partially submerged rubber dinghies off Libya, a spokeswoman said Thursday. Laura Lanuza of Spanish
World Bulletin / News Desk
Around 250 African refugees are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean after a rescue boat found two partially submerged rubber dinghies off Libya, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
Laura Lanuza of Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms said its boat Golfo Azzuro had recovered five floating corpses close to the dinghies, about 15 miles off the Libyan coast.
“We don’t think there can be any other explanation than that these dinghies would have been full of people,” she told AFP.
She added that they would typically have been carrying 120-140 refugees each.
“In over a year we have never seen any of these dinghies that were anything other than packed,” she added.
Lanuza said the bodies recovered were African men with estimated ages of between 16 and 25. They had drowned, apparently in the 24 hours prior to them being discovered shortly after dawn on Thursday in waters directly north of the Libyan port of Sabrata.
Over 5,000 people have been picked up by rescue boats since Sunday, bringing the number brought to Italy since the start of 2017 to over 21,000, a sharp rise on the same period in previous years.
k.tewolde March 24, 2017
Folks compare the number of lives that is perishing everyday in the high seas driven by the terrorist regimes in their own home,is anybody throwing a bouquet of flowers onto their floating corpses or a time lapse media coverage worldwide or a moment of global silence in their honor?do their lives matter?If this is not the epitome of terrorism,what is?Terrorism doesn’t come only in a suicide vest or yelling Allah Akbar.
Michael Tesfamariam March 25, 2017
I wonder how many more people have to die in order the so called seek “opposition” parties feel basic human decency & stop this senseless tragedies from ever happening again.
Ghirmay March 25, 2017
Well said brother Michael Tesfamariam.
One who fakes his sleep never even wakes up to the tornado or earthquake. Thus, the Eritrean Diaspora and the supposedly ‘oppositions’ are on their fake long sleeps and couldn’t be awakened to the fact that Eritrea is in disaster due to Isaias’s erratic leadership, defiant to the international laws and above all his brutal treatment of our people.
In short and indeed, our magician oppositions would be described as ‘awQo yetegnam biQeseQsut ayneQam’ in Amharic language. Let’s just hope and pray they are not in comas!