At least 114 dead including children and a pregnant woman after migrant boat carrying 500 passengers catches fire and sinks off coast of Italy
- - More than 200 people are missing after the boat sank off Lampedusa
- - Disaster occurred when the boat's motor stopped working
- - Three children and two pregnant women were among the victims
- - Bodies fished from the water were laid out along the quayside
By JILL REILLY
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Italian divers have seen at least another 20 bodies around a migrant boat on the sea floor after it capsized off the southern island of Lampedusa, raising the death toll in the shipwreck to at least 114 people.
At least 250 people are missing after the boat packed with African migrants caught fire and sank.
The disaster occurred when the boat's motor stopped working and the vessel began to take on water, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said.
People on board burned a sheet to attract the attention of rescuers, starting a fire on board.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
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Horrifying: Dozens of African migrants have died and more than 200 are missing after their ship caught fire and capsized off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, spilling hundreds of passengers into the sea
Origin: The migrants were from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, the coast guard said
Difficult: It is one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in recent times and the second one this week off Italy
Tragic: Bodies of drowned migrants are lined up in the port of Lampedusa this morning
This afternoon it was revealed that Italian divers have seen at least another 20 bodies around a migrant boat on the sea floor raising the death toll to at least 114 people.
Coastguard Commander Floriana Segreto says 'divers of the coastguard have found the boat on the sea floor at a depth of 40 metres (130 ft). ... The divers have yet to go inside the boat.'
She added that they are waiting for the weather to improve and will then start recovering more bodies.
'Once the fire started, there was a concern about the boat sinking and everyone moved to one side, causing the boat to go down,' he told a news conference.
The 20-metre (66 ft) vessel sank no more than 1 km (half a mile) from shore.
Bodies fished from the water were laid out along the quayside as the death toll rose in what looked like one of the worst disasters to hit the perilous route for migrants seeking to reach Europe from Africa.
'It's horrific, like a cemetery, they are still bringing them out,' Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini told reporters.
Alfano said three children and two pregnant women were among the victims.
Dangerous: Migrants frequently land on Lampedusa, just 113 km (70 miles) from the coast of Tunisia, often picked up at sea in
dangerously overcrowded boats by the Italian coastguard
Traumatised: A man is helped off the boat following the rescue
The disaster happened four days after 13 migrants drowned off eastern Sicily, and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said action was needed by the European Union to stem 'a succession of massacres of innocent people'.
Last year, almost 500 people were reported dead or missing on the crossing from Tunisia to Italy, the U.N. refugee office UNHCR says. Syrians fleeing civil war have added to the numbers.
A fishing boat raised the alarm at around 7:20 a.m. (0520 GMT) and began pulling people out of the water before coastguard vessels arrived on the scene. The coastguard said 151 people had been rescued.
Tragedy: The ship apparently capsized, spilling the passengers into the sea near Conigli island
Between 450 and 500 people, most either Eritreans or Somalis, appeared to have been on board the boat, which had come from Misrata in Libya, Alfano said.
'If they had been able to use a telephone, they could have been saved,' he said.
The search for survivors and victims continued within a four nautical mile radius, in water around 30-45 metres deep.
Rescuers planned to extend the radius later in the day, in case bodies had been pulled away by the tides, he said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres praised the rescue effort, but said: 'I am dismayed at the rising global phenomenon of migrants and people fleeing conflict or persecution and perishing at sea.'
Rescue: A woman receives assistance at the Palermo Civico hospital, Italy, after being rescued
Treatment: A man is carried off an ambulance to receive treatment
Desperate: Mayor Nicolini said the ship had caught fire after those on board set off flares so it would be seen by passing ships
Hunt: Coast guard ships and helicopters from across the region, as well as local fishing boats were on the scene trying to find survivors,
said Coast Guard spokesman Marco Di Milla
Shocked: Some of the immigrants after their rescue early this morning
Migrants frequently land on Lampedusa, just 113 km (70 miles) from the coast of Tunisia, often picked up at sea in dangerously overcrowded boats by the Italian coastguard.
Pope Francis, who visited the island in July on his first papal trip outside Rome, said he felt 'great pain' for the 'many victims of the latest tragic shipwreck today off Lampedusa'.
'The word that comes to mind is 'shame',' Francis said in unscripted remarks after a speech in the Vatican. 'Let us unite our strengths so that such tragedies never happen again.'
The stream of migrants is a humanitarian and political problem for the Italian government.
Victims: 13 immigrants drowned off the coast of Sicily after their boat ran aground on Monday
Horror: Rescuers pause to pay their respects to the 13 victims of the tragedy
About 15,000 reached Italy and Malta - 13,200 and 1,800 respectively - by sea last year, the UNHCR says. Thousands more have arrived this year.
Calling the deaths of migrants 'an endless tragedy,' Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said: 'The rescue operation began immediately but it is getting more difficult because now the weather is getting colder, they don't know how to swim, they don't know where to go.'
Migrants who arrive in Italy are allowed to apply for asylum. Many of them are ordered to leave the country but often slip away to become illegal immigrants in Italy or elsewhere in the European Union.
Italy has pressed the European Union for more help to fight the crisis which it says concerns the whole bloc.
'This is not an Italian drama, this is a European drama,' Alfano said. 'Lampedusa has to be considered the frontier of Europe, not the frontier of Italy.'
THE DESPERATE JOURNEY TO ITALY
Sicily and the surrounding islands are hotspots for illegal immigrants arriving by sea from Tunisia, Libya and sub-Sahara Africa hoping for a better quality of life.
A growing number of Syrian immigrants have fled to the region hoping for protection from their civil war.
In August, six migrants died after they jumped out of a boat off the coast of Sicily.
In July, seven drowned after they tried to hold onto a fishing cage which was being towed to shore off the coast of Sicily.
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