After the boat drama in which dozens of dead migrants washed up on the Italian coast, two smugglers were arrested.
The Italian public broadcaster RAI writes that they have been arrested for aiding and abetting illegal immigration, but the police are also investigating wrongful death. Police are also investigating the involvement of two others.
At least 61 people died in the accident, including thirteen children. About eighty people were rescued, but how many people were on board the boat is still unclear. Testimonies range from 180 to 250. Of the survivors, 22 people were taken to the hospital.
The migrants left the western Turkish city of Izmir three or four days earlier. The people on board were mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The old wooden boat broke through the rough sea and sank. According to local media, the boat was not resistant to the high waves. The wreckage and the dead washed ashore at Steccato di Cutro in the Calabria region.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was shocked but also angry about the people smugglers who make such tragedies possible. Foreign minister Matteo Piantedosi says that unscrupulous criminals make a lot of money by selling the migrants a trip to Europe on rickety, unseaworthy boats. “The corpses of their victims are used for huge profits that are invested in drugs and weapons.”
English