Migrants were killed in a religious clash on a Mediterranean boat sailing to Italy. In the incident took part Muslim and Christians migrants.
Italian police officers arrested 15 Muslims accused for throwing overboard 12 Christians from Nigeria and Ghana, all feared dead.
Photo: RTE
In the Mediterranean, between Italy and Libya another migrant boat sank, causing the death of over 40 people.
In recent months over 10,000 migrants have been rescued from Mediterranean sea waters trying to cross it to the other side. Italy faces difficulties dealing with migrant`s crisis and has called help from the EU.
From the beginning of 2015 more than 500 African and Middle-East migrants have found their death trying to cross the sea. Other 400 people were assumed to have drowned when their vessel overturned at the beginning of the last week. In another accident that occurred on April 20, 2015, concidered to be one of the daedliest disasters involving migrants in the Mediterranean, over 700 people found their death.
The 15 Muslims were arrested in Palermo, Sicily and charged with “multiple aggravated murder motivated by religious hate.”
On board of the inflatable boat sailing from Libya on Tuesday, were 105 migrants in total. The 15 Muslim suspects involved in the row with Christians were Ivory Coast, Senegal and Mali citizens.
Witness testimony in the Palermo police explained how the clash started and what caused the throwing of Christians overboard. It was mentioned that some survivors had to form human chains to avoid a similar ending.
The Italian navy officers on Thursday pulled out four survivors – one Ghanaian, two Nigerians and one from Niger. The migrants said they were 45 people on board when the accident occurred.
The rest 41 missing people are assumed drowned by the International Organization for Migrants (IOM).
The 4 survivors and six hundreds more migrants from various ships who tried to cross the Mediterranean were taken to Sicily.