(ANSA) - Rome, August 20 - Five Eritreans rescued at sea
off southern Italy on Thursday said 75 other people on board
had died from lack of food and water after their boat ran out
of fuel.
According to the survivors, a group of 80 set out from
Libya, a common staging-point for African migrants headed for
Europe, about three weeks ago.
Italian coastal patrols pulled just five people from the
12-metre-long boat on Thursday morning, as soon as Maltese
authorities reported a sighting.
Doctors attending the survivors described their
condition as ''heart-rending''.
''They were little more than skeletons,'' said one.
A spokesperson for the Italian finance police coastal
patrol, which rescued the group, said the claim of 75 deaths
had initially been treated with some suspicion.
But following the medical examination, the spokesperson
said the extreme physical condition of the survivors was
''compatible'' with so many others having died.
The five, whose boat was intercepted around 12 miles off
the coast of Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa, said
they had cast the bodies overboard.
A coastal patrol is now searching for the remains.
News of the deaths was greeted with shock and anger by
migrant organizations and opposition politicians.
The spokesperson for the Italian division of the United
Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Laura Boldrini, said it was
an ''alarming'' story.
''It appears that these survivors are all that remains
of a tragedy involving some 80 people, most of whom were
Eritrean, who set out from Libya at the end of July,'' she
said.
''It's alarming that these people were adrift in the
Mediterranean for 20 days without a single other boat
stopping to help them. This is a truly distressing first that
is enormously worrying''.
Christopher Hein of the Italian Refugee Council
suggested the boat had been deliberately left adrift.
''Given that the strip of sea between Lampedusa and Libya
is under full surveillance both day and night, it is simply
not possible that a 12-metre-long boat could remain adrift
for so long with not one person noticing,'' he said. ''That
means these people were deliberately left to meet their
fate''.
The leader of the main opposition Democratic party,
Dario Franceschini, said he was horrified by the news.
Referring to a controversial 'push-back' policy launched
in May, under which migrant boats intercepted in the
Mediterranean are sent back to Libya, he said ''the fight
against illegal immigration is one thing but ignoring basic
human rights is something else entirely''.
Sonia Alfano, an MEP with the small opposition Italy of
Values party, said ''this latest tragedy, which took place off
our coasts amid the greatest indifference should make us
reflect on the state of our so-called superior civilization''.
At least 124 migrants are known to have died at sea last
year in five separate incidents while making the crossing
from North Africa to Europe.
Earlier this year, four boats carrying over 500 migrants
sank in waters between Africa and Italy. Around 100 people
are thought to have died during the accident, although nearly
400 were rescued.
According to figures released by the Italian interior
ministry, around 37,000 people landed on Italian coasts in
2008 - a 75% increase on 2007.
Boat migrant landings in Italy, and particularly the
island of Lampedusa, have dropped significantly since the
start of the 'push-back' policy.
Nearly a thousand people have been sent back to Libya so
far as part of an agreement between Rome and Tripoli.
