The coffins of the victims, decorated with flowers, have been placed in a sports center in Crotone, where a memorial service will be held today
The bodies of the 65 victims of the wreck of the wooden boat carrying migrants that crashed into the rocks early Sunday off the southern coast of Italy have been on display since yesterday, Tuesday, at a gym.
The coffins of the victims, decorated with flowers, have been placed at PalaMilone, a sports center in Crotone, a town of nearly 60,000 people, where a memorial service will be held today.
A total of 14 minors are among the victims identified so far, according to figures announced yesterday by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piadentossi.
Among them five children in white coffins.
Twenty-eight victims have been identified so far, including 25 Afghans, one Palestinian, one Pakistani and one Syrian.
The coffins are placed in three rows on the floor of the sports center, having initially been left open so that relatives and friends could identify the victims.
In front of the sports center, many residents of the city had gathered yesterday, who laid candles and flowers in memory of the victims.
It is one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean, the world’s deadliest migration route.
Police yesterday arrested three people believed to be the traffickers – two Pakistanis and a Turk. According to the Italian agency AGI, they allegedly received 5,000 to 8,000 euros from each migrant.
The wooden boat, named “Summer Love,” left Izmir, Turkey on February 23, rescuers told the Red Cross.
Many non-governmental organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF), have sent teams to help survivors, including children who saw their relatives drown.
The UN’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014, including more than 220 this year already.
Source :Skai
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