Survivors from a boat that capsized off Egypt’s north coast are held in a police station in Rashid.
Advertisement
Egypt’s Armed Forces also said that the rescue ship managed to foil another boat carrying 294 migrants attempting illegal immigration.
Manypassengers are crammed below deck, with little chance of surviving if the boat sinks.
The boat was kept off the coast for five days as more and more migrants were brought on board, survivors told the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Rosetta.
Authorities arrest four people in connection with death of dozens of refugees after a boat capsized off Egypt’s coast.
He told CNN his cousin was rescued but his 24-year-old brother is missing. One fisherman told CNN, “Only dead bodies came out of the sea today, no survivors”.
“I had a bag in my hand, I kept struggling against the water while the water struggled against me until they finally saw me and waved back with a white shirt”.
“The refugee-immigration portfolio between the European Union and Turkey indicates how illegal immigration and human trafficking received a heavy blow in Turkey”. “The boat had more people than it could take”.
New and more unsafe smuggling attempts to reach Europe by riskier routes have led to a spike in the number of migrants dying as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean, the International Organization for Migration said in a report last month. Arrivals from Libya fell slightly. According to International Organisation for Migration, around 2,06,400 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year.
The deadliest month was May, when hundreds of people died in three separate incidents that overwhelmed rescuers.
Map of Egypt locating Rosetta, the port near where a boat carrying migrants has capsized, with many drowned.
A member of the German NGO Jugend Rettet helps a refugee removing his life jacket after he was rescued from an overcrowded dinghy, during an operation in the Mediterranean Sea September 21, 2016.
A day earlier, the Egyptian military arrested 68 people on a boat trying to make its way to Europe. In addition to Syrian migrants, there were migrants from Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea on board.
Advertisement
Several thousand people are still risking that voyage each month and experts say only the prospect of safe and effective resettlement schemes will stem the flow of people risking their lives.
