Police arrest human trafficking suspects after migrant boat crash
2023.02.28 13:26
Police arrest human trafficking suspects after migrant boat crash
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – Three people were detained by Italian authorities, and a fourth suspect was being sought. Authorities believe that up to 200 migrants were trafficked aboard a wooden boat that sank on rocks off the coast of southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 64 people.
In an indoor sports arena in the southern city of Crotone, the victims’ coffins had been found so far. The youngest victims had small white caskets, and the others had brown wooden caskets.
Several of them had engraved name tags and flowers on top. One of the children’s coffins had a toy police rescue vehicle on it.
From northern Europe, relatives of the victims traveled to Crotone to mourn and look for survivors. The majority of the migrants, according to rescuers, were from Afghanistan, with others coming from Pakistan, Iran, Somalia, and Syria.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis, “the main culprits of the tragedy” were identified by survivors as a Turkish man and two Pakistani nationals who had sailed the boat from Turkey to Italy despite the bad weather.
According to Lippolis, commander of a finance police team in the region of Calabria, “they allegedly asked the migrants for about 8,000 euros (about $8,485) each for the deadly journey.” They’ve all been taken into custody.”
A judicial source stated that one of the Pakistanis was a minor, and police were looking for a fourth Turkish suspect.
In rough seas early on Sunday, the boat struck rocks and capsized near the Italian town of Steccato di Cutro.
On Tuesday, a man was rescued from the water, bringing the total number of bodies retrieved to 64, including 14 children. 80 people who survived claimed that the boat had been carrying 150-200 migrants.
Rocco Mortato, a member of the fire department’s underwater diving team, stated, “We will continue searching… the sea until we are certain that we have found everyone.”
At the end of last week, the boat set sail from the Izmir port in western Turkey.
The survivors were receiving psychological assistance from teams from the charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
They have suffered a lot of trauma. “A MSF psychologist named Mara Eliana Tunno said, “Everyone has lost someone.”
Both a 12-year-old boy from Afghanistan and a 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan had lost members of their families.
Tunno stated, “He didn’t have the courage to tell his parents.”
In Europe and Italy, where the new right-wing government’s stringent new laws for migrant rescue charities have been criticized by the United Nations and others, the tragedy has fueled a migration debate.
In an interview on Monday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated that she had written to institutions of the European Union requesting that the bloc take immediate action to stop migrant boat trips to prevent additional deaths.
She stated to RAI public television, “The more people leave, the greater the risk of dying.” Stopping the departures is the only serious and humane way to deal with this problem.
Over the course of the past decade, tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in Italy by boat, fleeing poverty and conflict in their home countries.
On Tuesday, a group of Green Party politicians demonstrated in front of Meloni’s office to ask why more was not done to save the migrants when their overcrowded boat was seen on Saturday.
Police have said that watch boats were shipped off capture the travelers, however extreme weather conditions constrained them to get back to port.
