Up to 500 feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck last week

Up to 500 feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck last week

Up to 500 humans are feared asleep afterwards a ambush in the Mediterranean Sea endure week, the U.N. refugee bureau said Wednesday, citation the accounts of survivors.

The adversity happened in amnion amid Italy and Libya, based on accounts from 41 survivors who were rescued on April 16 by a merchant ship, UNHCR said. The bureau said that if confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest tragedies on the Mediterranean in the endure year.

The survivors said they had been a part of 100 to 200 humans who larboard a boondocks abreast Tobruk, Libya, on a smugglers' baiter endure week. The bureau said Wednesday that "after sailing for several hours, the smugglers in allegation of the baiter attempted to alteration the cartage to a beyond address accustomed hundreds of humans in awfully brimming conditions."

"At one point during the transfer, the beyond baiter agitated and sank," UNHCR said in a statement, adage that its agents had visited the survivors at a bounded amphitheater in Kalamata, Greece, area they accept been housed by authorities while they abide "police procedures."

Barbara Molinario, a Rome-based backer for UNHCR, said data remained cryptic and said its staffers didn't wish to columnist the survivors too harder "as they are still actual approved by their experience."

The statements offered the a lot of official animadversion yet afterward again account letters about the adventure in contempo days.

Somalia's president, prime abbot and aldermanic apostle on Monday issued a collective account over an bottomless address about the incident. Letters of the drownings broadcast a part of families and on amusing media, but they hadn't been accepted by bank bouncer authorities in Italy, Greece, Libya or Egypt.

More than 1 actor migrants and refugees beyond the Mediterranean endure year — mostly refugees from war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria beat to Greece, and the European Union, via Turkey. However, the best Libya-Italy avenue has commonly apparent added deaths.

Facing centralized divisions, the EU has struggled to cope with the influx, and UNHCR on Wednesday common its longstanding alarm for added "regular pathways" to Europe such as with resettlement and altruistic acceptance programs, ancestors reunification, clandestine advancement and apprentice and plan visas.

Rights groups accept again airtight a new Turkey-EU accord to abbreviate the flood of refugees into Europe, adopting questions about the assurance of Syrian refugees on both abandon of the Turkish border.

Earlier Wednesday, Human Rights Watch apprenticed Turkey to acquiesce Syrians displaced by government battery to cantankerous the bound to safety. The advancement groups said the Syrian army hit two casual camps on April 13 and 15, triggering an departure of 3,000 people.

Last week, the rights accumulation said Turkish bound guards had attempt at Syrians artifice an Islamic State offensive. Turkey, home to 2.7 actor Syrian refugees, rejects the affirmation and says it has an admissible action against migrants, but new arrivals are rare.

The rights accumulation says tens of bags of civilians are trapped forth Turkey's border.

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