Shipwrecked Migrants Used Empty Water Bottles to Stay Afloat

(AP) Migrants used empty water bottles to stay afloat
By ANDREA ROSA
Associated Press
LAMPEDUSA, Italy
Survivors of a fiery shipwreck that killed more than 100 African migrants clung to empty water bottles to keep themselves from drowning and were coated in gasoline, an Italian fisherman said Friday.

Lampedusa resident Vito Fiorino said he was the first to come across dozens of migrants scattered in the Mediterranean Sea while he was on an early morning fishing expedition. Some didn’t have the strength to grab the lifesaver thrown to them and told him they had been fighting to stay alive for three hours.

Fiorino said he alerted the Italian coast guard and other boats when he came upon desperate migrants just before 7 a.m. Thursday. He and his friends lifted 47 people up onto his 10-meter (32-foot) boat.

Lampedusa, a tiny island 70 miles (113 kilometers) off Tunisia and closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, has been at the center of wave after wave of illegal immigration.

On Friday, Italian coast guard boats carrying divers headed out from Lampedusa to search for more bodies, but choppy waters hampered their efforts.

The scope of the tragedy at Lampedusa _ with 111 bodies recovered so far, 155 people rescued and up to an estimated 250 still missing, according to officials _ has prompted outpourings of grief. Italian officials demanded a comprehensive European Union immigration policy to deal with the tens of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and strife in Africa and the Middle East.

Pope Francis called Friday a “day of tears,” denouncing the “savage” system that he said drives people to leave their homes for a better life, yet doesn’t care when they die in the process.

The 66-foot (20-meter) smuggler’s boat was carrying migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia when it caught fire early Thursday near the Lampedusa port, authorities said. The fire panicked those on board the rickety boat. They stampeded to one side, flipping it over, and hundreds of men, women and children, many of whom could not swim, were flung into the sea.

Italian coast guard ships, fishing boats and helicopters from across the region have taken part in the search and rescue operations. Coast guard divers late Thursday found the wreck on the sea floor, 130 feet (40 meters) below the surface, with bodies scattered around it.

Rescue crews hauled body bags by the dozens into Lampedusa port on Thursday, lining them up under multicolored tarps on the docks.

Barbara Molinario of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Lampedusa said authorities were expecting the number of missing to be around 250, based on survivor accounts.

The UNHCR believes this is likely to be the biggest such incident recorded involving migrants in the Mediterranean. But it points out that there are many more incidents of boats arriving with many dead – citing for example one with 63 dead on board and seven survivors, and others in which survivors arrive saying dozens have died at sea, but can’t be verified because the bodies are never found.

`’Here it is all within 600 meters (650 yards) of shore and we will have more clarity,” said Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR representative in Italy.

Thousands make the perilous crossing each year, seeking a new life in the prosperous European Union. Smugglers charge thousands of dollars a head for the journey aboard overcrowded, barely seaworthy boats that lack life vests. Each year hundreds die in the crossing.

___

Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan.