A boat carrying 600 people from Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan capsized off the Egyptian coast yesterday killing 43 people.
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Rescuers brought more bodies ashore Thursday after a boat crowded with migrants capsized off the Egyptian coast, leaving at least 55 people dead and dozens missing.
Officials said four members of the vessel’s crew were remanded in police custody for four days pending further investigation. Security sources said it had been loaded with nearly 600 migrants. 169 people were rescued from the Mediterranean but hundreds more might have perished at sea. It was not immediately possible to verify the differing accounts, but the survivor’s comments suggest fewer people might be missing than initially thought.
The military has said 163 survivors have been rescued so far, with a health ministry official saying 55 bodies had been retrieved.
Mahmoud Abd el-Latif, an Egyptian man, sleeps at a hospital in Rosetta, Egypt, after rescued from a boat capsized off the Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016. Rescued migrants have been questioned and freed.
The boat was carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants, officials said. A prosecution official said they would be treated like “victims and not perpetrators” and would be released.
An initial breakdown of the nationalities of the migrants showed that they included 111 Egyptians, mostly teenagers and men in their 20s, said Sultan.
Shehata warned that the economic suffering of Egyptians may lead the country to become a main source of illegal immigration to the West, calling on the Egyptian government to announce scheduled programs to resolve the issues and “give people hope to continue working inside their country”.
The boat sank on Wednesday in the Mediterranean off Burg Rashid, a village in Egypt’s northern Beheira province where the sea and the Nile meet.
According to BBC online, the boat was being held off the coast while increasing numbers of migrants were being brought to it. His brother and cousin were on board the boat that capsized.
“We urge the parliament to pass (a) new anti-human smuggling law that should be a strong deterrent for smugglers”.
In recent years, thousands of refugees and migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean in search of better jobs and opportunities.
Thousands of illegal migrants have made the risky sea voyage across the Mediterranean in recent years, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.
If they survive the perilous maritime journey, migrants this year face much tougher European Union border controls.
World leaders, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi, discussed the migrant crisis this week while gathered in NY at the United Nations General Assembly.
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In the first seven months of this year, Italian data showed that the number of migrants who reached the country by boat from Egypt was almost 70% higher than the same period of last year. Where is this? I want to know now, where is my friend? If I could, I would; I can’t get married. or live (here).
