On Wednesday, a migrant boat off Libyan coast sank in the Mediterranean, prompting Doctors without borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) to a quick rescue mission.
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Italy arrested three Libyans and two Algerians on Friday accused of multiple homicide and human trafficking in connection with the presumed death by drowning of more than 200 migrants after a ship capsized in the Mediterranean, police said. Twenty-six bodies have been recovered so far and five suspects have been taken into custody.
Yesterday’s rescue was the 11th operation in which the Irish naval vessel has been involved since it arrived in the Mediterranean last month. Many either reaching Italian shores, or being picked up by patrol boats from Italy.
The boat was carrying in total some 650 people. Italian military helicopters lowered inflatable rafts.
Police said the accused men charged the migrants between Dollars 1,200 and USD 1,800 for the voyage, depending on where they would be placed on the deck of the boat. Safer places on board cost more; life vests were sold separately as extras, police said.
Its sister ship, the LÉ Eithne, brought more than 3,376 migrants to safety during its seven-week deployment that began on 16 May.
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But the UN agency said that while the migrant and refugee crisis on Europe’s coastlines was deepening, it was still the developing world that bears most of the brunt of continued conflicts around the globe.
