CATANIA, Sicily (AP) – Prosecutors are starting to build the case against the traffickers responsible for what might be the Mediterranean’s worst migrant disaster as European Union leaders mull a new plan to stem the tide and undermine smugglers’ finances and most precious assets: the boats.
Overnight Tuesday, prosecutors boarded the rescue ship that brought the 27 survivors of the weekend disaster to Sicily and arrested the Tunisian captain and a Syrian crew member of the smuggler ship that capsized. They are accused of favoring illegal immigration and the captain was also accused of reckless homicide in the deaths of as many as 900 migrants.
The survivors were brought to a migrant holding center in Catania and were “very tired, very shocked, silent,” according to Flavio Di Giacomo of the International Organization for Migration.