Per editor: Sun Zhicheng, Gai Yuanyuan
According to CCTV news, according to local media reports on the 26th, on the coast near the city of Crotone in Calabria in southern Italy that morning, a migrant boat trying to land sank that morning. Rescuers have recovered 45 bodies, including a newborn baby, on the beach and nearby seas.
For a long time, large numbers of illegal immigrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean by boat, trying to land in Europe through Italy, Greece and other countries. However, due to factors such as wind and waves at sea, old boats, and crowded people, illegal immigrants and refugees have fallen into the sea and trampled on the sea, resulting in deaths.
A migrant ship sank in Italy
Forty-five bodies have been found
According to CCTV news, rescued people told rescuers that the boat was carrying 250 people, mainly from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the exact number of people on board is not yet known, and media speculation that hundreds of people may have been killed. In addition, the boat carrying the migrants, a wooden fishing boat, departed from Turkey four days ago and sank after landing because of the wind and waves at sea, and it broke into two sections after hitting the rock.
On February 26, Red Cross volunteers and coast police found the remains of a victim of a sinking migrant boat near Cutro, Calabria in southern Italy. (Image source: Xinhua/Associated Press)
According to Xinhua, the website of the Italian radio and television news channel reported that before the accident, the migrant ship was trying to land in Calabria in southern Italy via the Ionian Sea. According to survivors, the ship was overloaded too much to withstand the huge sea winds, and eventually broke in two.
Italian media reported according to information provided by the police that the boat carried 200 to 250 people, and at the time of the accident, the passengers on board did not have time to call for help, and the survivors reached the coast on their own.
Local officials said women and children were among the victims. No exact number of child deaths is yet available. The Associated Press reported that the victims included a one-month-old baby and an 8-year-old boy.
The official choked up and said he saw "scenes you don't want to see in your life... A horrible sight... It will stay with you for the rest of your life. ”
According to Xinhua, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed deep grief over the shipwreck, promising that the government would stop smuggling to avoid more tragedies.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedossi said the accident showed that decisive measures by the government against irregular migration channels were "absolutely necessary". This sea crossing gives migrants the "illusion that they can live a better life in Europe" and enriches traffickers.
Image source: Visual China
Many migrants from West Asia and North Africa usually choose to cross the Mediterranean by boat into European countries such as Italy. According to data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, as of the 23rd of this month, 13,067 migrants have entered Italy by sea this year, more than double the same period last year.
More than 29,000 migrants have migrated since 2014
Died on the way to Europe
Journalist Patrick Kingsley described two extremely cruel ways refugees leave their homeland in his book My Unfinished Suffering. One was crossing the desert, where they were stuffed into trucks with hundreds of people crammed into each vehicle, "people crammed into their bodies like sardines, and people died from dehydration or falling off their cars on almost every journey." An Eritrean he met told him that eight people in his car had died of heat. The second is to cross the sea by boat, which usually carries several times the number of refugees they carry, "so many people huddled tightly together, any extra movement can lead to capsizing." Unable to move, those sitting in the middle of the boat can only poop in their pants, and urinate on the people next to them."
In fact, accidents involving illegal immigrants or refugees are common in Europe due to a number of factors.
According to Xinhua News Agency, Greece's Athens-Macedonia News Agency reported on February 5 that an illegal migrant boat sank in the waters southeast of the Greek island of Leros that morning, killing four people and rescuing 39 others.
The Greek news agency Athens - Macedonia quoted the coast guard as saying that one woman was found dead when she was found and that several others were taken to hospital for treatment, including three children in critical condition.
According to the announcement issued by the Greek Coast Guard on the 5th, some survivors said that the ship departed from Turkey, there were more than 40 people on board, and most of the passengers were of African descent. At the time of the accident, there was a strong wind of 8 in the nearby sea, accompanied by continuous rainfall, poor visibility and severe weather conditions.
In March 2016, Turkey and the European Union reached an agreement on the control of illegal migration, and the number of illegal immigrants smuggled into Europe through Turkey fell sharply, but the Aegean Sea remains an important route for illegal migrants to Europe smuggled through Turkey.
On February 17, local time, the official website of the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the country's police found an abandoned truck near the capital Sofia that afternoon, carrying about 40 illegal immigrants, 18 of whom have died. Government officials said one child was among the dead, and some of the remaining survivors were taken to hospitals for treatment.
"They were locked up in trucks, deprived of oxygen, cold and wet, and had not eaten for days." Bulgarian Health Minister Asen Medzhidiev said the survivors in the car had been taken to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment, some of them in dire condition.
According to CCTV news, Tunisian media reported on January 7 that according to a judicial department official in Sfax City, a boat carrying more than 30 illegal immigrants sank in Sfax waters on the 6th, killing 5 people and missing 10 others.
According to a report released by the International Organization for Migration last October, more than 5,000 smugglers have died on their way to Europe since January 2021.
According to the report, the highest number of deaths is on the Central Mediterranean route, where more than 2,800 people have died since the beginning of 2021 while trying to reach Italy or Malta, mostly from Libya or Tunisia; This is followed by the Atlantic route from West Africa to Spain's Canary Islands, through which more than 1,500 people have died en route to Europe since January 2021. In addition, similar cases have been increasing in recent years in other parts of the border with Europe, as well as in Greece, the Balkans and the English Channel.
The researchers say the actual death toll may be higher because some ships were sunk without knowing at the time they struck.
According to the report, since 2014, more than 29,000 migrants have died on their way to Europe, of which more than 17,000 are of unknown nationality, and the confirmed nationality of the dead is mainly from Africa and the Middle East.
Editor|Sun Zhicheng Gai Yuanyuan
Proofreader|Zhang Yiming
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