ROME (AP) -- A
migration expert says only 3 of an estimated 100 women on a migrant
ship that capsized off Italy have been rescued, and no children have
been saved so far.
Italian experts say at least 94 people have died in Thursday's shipwreck of the southern island of Lampedusa.
Simona
Moscarelli, a legal expert for the International Organization for
Migration in Rome, told The Associated Press that "only the strongest
survived" the capsize and most of the migrants coming from Africa could
not swim.
She based her comments on her agency's early interviews with survivors.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
A
ship carrying African migrants to Europe caught fire and capsized off
the Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday, killing at least 94 people
as it spilled hundreds of passengers into the sea, officials said. Over
150 people were rescued but some 200 others were still unaccounted for.
It
was one of the deadliest recent accidents in the notoriously perilous
Mediterranean Sea crossing from Africa for migrants seeking a new life
in the European Union.
"We need only caskets,
certainly not ambulances," Pietro Bartolo, chief of health services on
the island, told Radio 24. He gave the death toll of 94 but told Sky
TG24 he expected that to rise as search operations continued.
"It's
an immense tragedy," said Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini, adding that
the dead included at least one child of about 3 and a pregnant woman.
Antonio Candela, the government's health commissioner for Palermo, said 159 people had been rescued.
Lampedusa
is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland - a mere 70 miles (113
kilometers) off the coast of Tunisia - and is the frequent destination
for smugglers' boats. Blue, white, green and black tarps covered the
bodies at the port.
Coast guard ships, local
fishing boats and helicopters from across the region were combing the
waters trying to find survivors, said coast guard spokesman Marco Di
Milla. The boat left from Tripoli with migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and
Somalia, he said.
Italy's interior minister,
Angelino Alfano, told reporters that 20-meter (66-foot)boat began taking
on water after its motor went out. The passengers didn't have any
cellphones to call for help so instead set a small fire to flag passing
ships.
But because gas had mixed with the
water flooding the ship, the fire then spread to the ship itself.
Passengers fled to one side of the boat, flipping the ship, and some
450-500 people were flung into the sea, Alfano said.
Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July, quickly sent his condolences .
It
was the second shipwreck this week off Italy: On Monday, 13 men drowned
while trying to reach southern Sicily when their ship ran aground just a
few meters (yards) from shore.
Hundreds of
migrants reach Italy's shores every day, particularly during the summer
when seas are usually calmer. They are processed in centers, screened
for asylum and often sent back home. Those who aren't usually melt into
the general public and make their way to northern Europe, where
immigrant communities are bigger and better organized. In Italy,
migrants can only work legally if they have a work permit and contract
before they arrive.
According to the U.N.
refugee agency, 8,400 migrants landed in Italy and Malta in the first
six months of the year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the
first half of 2012.
It's still a far cry from
the tens of thousands who flooded to Italy, especially through
Lampedusa, during the Arab Spring exodus of 2011.
The numbers, though, have spiked in recent weeks, particularly with Syrian arrivals.
The
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees had recorded 40 deaths in the first
half of 2013 for migrants arriving in Italy and Malta, and a total of
500 for all of 2012, based on interviews with survivors. Fortress
Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths, says about
6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012.
