Child victims of the ‘voyage of death’: Heart-breaking pictures show small white coffins among rows of caskets in sports hall morgue as death toll from Italian migrant ship disaster reaches 65
- A sports hall in southern Italy is lined with dozens of coffins following the wreck
- More than 100 people are feared dead with many still missing amid the tragedy
Gut-wrenching images have emerged of dozens of coffins – some tiny white caskets – filling a sports hall in southern Italy after a tragic shipwreck claimed the lives of at least 65 migrants.
The overcrowded wooden boat, carrying up to 200 people from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, was smashed to pieces in a storm on Sunday morning.
Flower bouquets adorned each coffin in the building in Crotone, while a toy blue car had been laid on one of the smallest, ready for mourners to pay their respects.
A dozen children, including a newborn baby, are among the dead.
Earlier, the coffins had been opened to allow the identification of the victims, with relatives having flown in from countries including Germany and Austria.
One woman let out a scream which shattered the deathly silence of the sports hall and underscored the devastating loss of life amid what prosecutors searching for the people smugglers behind the operation called the ‘voyage of death’.
Coffins containing people who died in a migrant shipwreck, lie in state at Palasport in Crotone, Italy, February 28, 2023
A toy truck is seen as coffins containing people who died in a migrant shipwreck
Each white coffin is smaller than the last, containing the bodies of young children who drowned in the disaster
A young girl’s soaking and sand-covered onesie is seen washed up on an Italian beach after a shipwreck
A dead body is found in the aftermath of a deadly migrant shipwreck in Steccato di Cutro near Crotone, Italy, February 28, 2023
Pictured: Remains of boat and personal belongings on the beach, Staccato di Cutro, Italy
Coffins containing people who died in a migrant shipwreck, lie in state at Palasport in Crotone, Italy, February 28, 2023
Three men – two Pakistanis and a Turkish national – have been detained for alleged people smuggling over the incident, a police spokesman told AFP.
‘Traffickers threw children into the sea’ to try and lighten their boat and escape coastguard before it capsized, killing up to 100 migrants – READ MORE
Prosecutors claimed the smugglers charged each person nearly £8,000 to make the trip from Turkey across the Mediterranean Sea.
A German-speaking man told reporters he was the nephew of an Afghan man who survived but lost his wife and three children aged 5, 8 and 12, after paying $30,000 for the family to cross.
Fourteen children were among the 65 people confirmed to have died when their overcrowded boat broke apart the interior ministry said.
Another 80 survived, while several more are believed still to be missing.
It was one of the most tragic incidents in the Central Mediterranean, which tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers cross each year hoping to find a new life in Europe.
Bodies, shoes and debris have been washing up along the shoreline for the past three days, with the most recent body found on the beach at Steccato on Tuesday morning, the fire service said.
Divers are still searching for potentially up to 20 missing people. It is not yet clear exactly how many were on the boat, but charities working with survivors said the number of passengers was likely to be around 200.
The overloaded vessel was called Summer Love and it set off last Thursday from Izmir in Turkey, survivors told Red Cross charity workers.
Many of those on board were seated below deck and had difficulty breathing, they reportedly said.
An aftermath of a deadly migrant shipwreck is seen in Steccato di Cutro near Crotone Italy, February 28, 2023
Pictured: remains of boat and personal belongings on the beach, Staccato di Cutro
Pictured: emergency services search water on jet ski, Staccato di Cutro, Italy
Coffins containing people who died in a migrant shipwreck, lie in state at Palasport in Crotone, Italy, February 28, 2023
Amid questions about whether more could have been done to prevent the tragedy, both Italy’s coastguard and the EU border Frontex revealed they had tried to help.
Frontex said one of its planes had spotted a ‘heavily overcrowded boat’ heading towards Italy late on Saturday, and had informed the Italian authorities.
‘There were no signs of distress,’ it said, adding that the plane monitored the ship until it had to go home to refuel.
It said Italy dispatched two patrol boats to intercept the vessel but they were forced by bad weather to return to port.
Italy’s coastguard, for its part, said Frontex had seen the boat ‘with only one person visible’, and a financial crimes police vessel had tried to intercept it.
At 4.30am on Sunday (0330 GMT), reports had come in suggesting the boat was in danger just ‘a few minutes from the coast’, and a rescue mission was launched.
A sports hall is lined with coffins
A piece of the boat from the deadly migrant shipwreck is seen in Steccato di Cutro near Crotone, Italy, February 28, 2023
Pictured: emergency services on the beach, Staccato di Cutro, Italy There are fears more than 100 people, including children, have died after their boat sank off Crotone southern Italy
Some have blamed the country’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgina Meloni (pictured) and her party’s hardline policy against migrant boats for the dozens of deaths, while she has pointed the finger at ‘inhumane’ human traffickers. Others have blamed the EU
Following the tragedy, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni sent a letter to European leaders demanding quick action on the continent’s longstanding migration problem, insisting that migrants must be stopped from risking their lives on dangerous sea crossings.
‘The point is, the more people who set off, the more people risk dying,’ she told RAI state television late Monday.
Meloni’s right-wing government, which swept elections last year in part on promises to crack down on migration, has concentrated on complicating efforts by humanitarian boats to make multiple rescues in the central Mediterranean by assigning them ports of disembarkation along Italy’s northern coasts. That means the vessels need more time to return to sea after bringing migrants aboard and taking them safely to shore.
But aid groups’ rescue ships don’t normally operate in the area of Sunday’s shipwreck, which occurred off the Calabrian coast in the Ionian Sea. Rather, the aid groups generally operate in the central Mediterranean, rescuing migrants who set off from Libya or Tunisia – not from Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Afghan foreign ministry meanwhile expressed its ‘great sadness’ for those killed.
‘The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan prays for forgiveness for the martyrs and patience for the families and relatives of the victims, urging all citizens once again to avoid going to foreign countries through irregular migration,’ it said.
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