ROME — A smuggler’s boat crammed with hundreds of people overturned off Libya’s coast as rescuers approached, causing what could be the Mediterranean’s deadliest known migrant accident.
The tragedy intensified pressure Sunday on the European Union to finally meet demands for decisive action.
Accounts of the number aboard varied, with the Italian Coast Guard saying that the capsized boat had a capacity for “hundreds” of people. Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds locked in the hold by smugglers. Earlier, authorities said a survivor told them 700 migrants were on board.
It was not immediately clear whether they were referring to the same survivor, and Premier Matteo Renzi said Italian authorities were “not in a position to confirm or verify” how many were on board when the boat set out from Libya.
Eighteen ships joined the rescue effort. Only 28 survivors and 24 bodies had been pulled from the water by nightfall, Renzi said.
These small numbers make more sense if hundreds of people were locked in the hold. With so much weight down below, “surely the boat would have sunk,” said Gen. Antonino Iraso of the Italian Border Police, which deployed boats in the operation.
Survivor’s account
Prosecutor Giovanni Salvi said by phone from the city of Catania that a survivor from Bangladesh described the situation on the fishing boat to prosecutors who interviewed him in a hospital.
The man said about 300 people were in the hold, locked in there by the smugglers, when the vessel set out. He said that of the 950 who set out aboard the doomed boat, about 200 were women and several dozen were children.
Salvi stressed there was no confirmation yet of the man’s account and that the investigation was ongoing.
Iraso said the sea in the area is too deep for divers, suggesting that the final toll might never be known. The sea off Libya runs about 3 miles deep.
“How can it be that we daily are witnessing a tragedy?” asked Renzi, who strategized with his top ministers ahead of Monday’s European Union meeting in Luxembourg, where foreign ministers scrambled to add stopping the smugglers to their agenda.
Political outcry
Resurgent right-wing political parties have made a rallying cry out of a rising tide of illegal migration. So far this year, 35,000 asylum seekers and migrants have reached Europe, and more than 900 are known to have died trying.
With the tragedy Sunday, demands for decisive action were going mainstream, as authorities from France, Spain, Germany and Britain joined calls for a unified response.
“Europe can do more, and Europe must do more,” said Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament. “It is a shame and a confession of failure how many countries run away from responsibility and how little money we provide for rescue missions.”
Europe must mobilize “more ships, more overflights by aircraft,” French President Francois Hollande told French TV Canal Plus.
“Words won’t do anymore,” Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, said at a political rally.
Renzi said he too wants action, but he rejected calls by some Italian lawmakers for a naval blockade. That would only “wind up helping the smugglers” because military ships would be there to rescue any migrants, and they wouldn’t be able to return passengers to chaos and violence in Libya.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the latest tragedy is an urgent reminder “of the critical need for a robust search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean,” in a statement released late Sunday by his spokesman.
Ban said the Mediterranean has become “the world’s deadliest route used by asylum seekers and migrants.”
Desperate migrants fleeing war, persecution and conflict in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have long tried to reach Europe. Libya has increasingly become a more frequent point of departure.
How it happened
The 66-foot vessel might have overturned because migrants rushed to one side of the craft late Saturday night when they saw an approaching Portuguese-flagged container ship, the King Jacob, which was sent to the area by Italy’s Coast Guard.
The ship’s crew “immediately deployed rescue boats, gangway, nets and life rings,” a spokesman for its owner said.
Asked whether migrants rushed to one side as the Portuguese vessel pulled close, Iraso told Sky TG24 TV that “the dynamics aren’t clear. But this is not the first time that has happened.”
