Mediterranean migrants: Details emerge of deadly capsize

 

Details have emerged about the capsize of a migrant boat in the Mediterranean on Sunday that killed more than 800.

Prosecutors in Italy say the captain, who survived and faces multiple homicide charges, crashed the boat by mistake against a merchant rescue ship.
The capsize is the deadliest recorded in the Mediterranean, the UN says.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says deaths in 2015 are 30 times higher than the same period last year and could rise to 30,000.

'Locked below'

The 28 survivors of the weekend capsize arrived in Catania, Sicily, late on Monday.
Italian police said they issued an arrest warrant for the Tunisian captain of the boat, Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, and crew member Mahmud Bikhit, a 25-year-old Syrian, as soon as the coastguard vessel Bruno Gregoretti docked.
At the scene: BBC's James Reynolds in Mineo, Sicily
More than a dozen survivors of the weekend shipwreck are being guarded in a house inside the Mineo migrant centre.
They've become the most important witnesses in an official criminal investigation into the wreck of their boat. Italian officials instructed us not to approach or speak to them.
After midday the survivors came out of the house and were escorted the few steps to a waiting minibus. The survivors - all young men - boarded the bus in single file and in silence.
One of them sat next to the window. I caught his eye and signalled a thumbs up or thumbs down sign as a question. He replied with a thumbs up - and then broke out into a smile.
The survivors were then driven a short distance to the dining hall, where they were served a lunch of pasta, rice, chicken and vegetables. They ate in silence.
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Capt Malek was accused of causing a shipwreck, multiple first degree homicides and being accomplice to clandestine immigration. Mr Bikhit was accused only of the third charge.
The charges on both men have yet to be formally laid by a judge. The pair will appear in court on Friday.
The Italian prosecutors said there appeared to be two causes of the capsize.
They said the migrant boat captain had tried to come alongside the rescue vessel and "accidentally caused the small fishing boat to collide with the bigger merchant ship".
The second cause was the "overcrowding of the fishing boat, so the boat was tipped off balance by the wrong manoeuvre, causing the migrants on board to shift. It then capsized".
Chief prosecutor Giovanni Salvi said the huge death toll was as a result of so many migrants being locked below on the three-deck boat.
source: BBC