Egypt arrests 4 after migrant boat capsizes, killing dozens
ROSETTA, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian authorities on Thursday arrested four people in connection with the death of at least 42 migrants whose Europe-bound boat capsized off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.
Officials said the four were members of the vessel’s crew and were remanded in police custody for four days pending further investigation. They face charges of human trafficking and manslaughter.
Authorities also issued arrest warrants for five more people wanted in connection with the tragedy, according to the officials.
The Egyptian military said the boat was 12 nautical miles off the coast near the town of Rosetta when it capsized Wednesday.
But, more than 24 hours after the incident, uncertainty endured over the exact number of migrants who were on board the vessel before it capsized, with estimates ranging between 250, 400 and 600. If the highest number is confirmed, then the incident will go down as one of the deadliest tragedies to take place on the migrant route across the Mediterranean. Survivors said most of those who died were women and children.
The International Organization for Migration said the boat carried 350 migrants, but cautioned that the figure was an estimate, according to IOM spokesman Joel A. Millman. He did not say how the agency arrived at that figure. Quoting unidentified sources, he said the Egyptian coast guard had rescued 163 migrants and recovered 42 bodies, leaving 145 unaccounted for.
“We’re still working to verify what has happened to survivors. I’m sure you can appreciate the difficulties in gathering accurate information in cases like this,’ said Jenny Sparks of IOM in Geneva.
Mohammed Sultan, the governor of Beheira province, where Rosetta is located, told The Associated Press that authorities did not have a precise number for those who were on board the vessel, but that 250-400 seemed likely. He said 157 people were rescued.
Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency, MENA, on Wednesday put the number at 600, but did not say where the figure came from.
An initial breakdown of the nationalities of the migrants showed that they included 111 Egyptians, mostly teenagers and men in their 20s, said Sultan, the Beheira governor. There were also 25 Sudanese, while the rest were sub-Saharan Africans and Syrians. The search for bodies and survivors has been expanded around the spot where the vessel capsized, he added.
Thousands of illegal migrants have made the dangerous sea voyage across the Mediterranean in recent years, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Egypt to Europe has increased significantly in the past year, EU border agency Frontex recently said. More than 12,000 migrants arrived in Italy from Egypt between January and September, compared to 7,000 in the same period last year, it said.
Many of the survivors in the latest tragedy have been detained by police. Some of those rescued after suffering injuries were taken to hospitals, where they lie handcuffed to beds under police guard.
One survivor, Ahmed Darwish, blamed traffickers for the tragedy, saying overcrowding caused the boat to capsize, and accused authorities of not reacting quickly enough.
“The boat is meant to hold 200, and they put 400 in it. And this is what caused the catastrophe,” he said. Many of the dead, he explained, were women and children who could not swim. “Those … that knew how to swim moved away (from the boat), leaving behind women and small children,” he said.
Mina Fawzi, a 19-year-old survivor, told AP on Thursday that there were already about 250 people on the boat when the smugglers brought along another 250.
“With the large number of people, the boat sank,” he said.
Hassan Suleiman, a relative of one of those who were on board, said authorities were slow to rescue the migrants and that fishing boats were first at the scene, plucking bodies from the water and rescuing survivors. He also claimed that traffickers in the area were known to police by name and that some policemen were paid by them to look the other way.
“This is shameful. This is shameful for our children and our young people that go to them.”
The head of the local council, Ali Abdel-Sattar, said the loss of life would have been much heavier had a fishing vessel not been close by when the boat capsized. He identified the skipper of the fishing boat as Mohammed Abu Hamid.
“If this man wasn’t there, if this man wasn’t sent by God, the entire group of migrants would have been dead by now,” said Abdel-Sattar.
He said the coast guard did not start its rescue operations until 11 a.m. on Wednesday, more than five hours after the boat capsized.
He said migrants go out to sea in small groups and gather at bigger boats, which begin the journey to Europe when traffickers believe they have gathered enough passengers. He said on bigger boats, the space below deck at the front of the vessel is often packed tight with people. “Those are dead, for sure.”
He said smugglers were charging migrants around 35,000 pounds (nearly $4,000) each for the perilous journey to Europe. “They paid money to go and die,” he said.
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Michael reported from Cairo.
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