CALABRIA: Forty-five people died, including some children, when a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern Italian coast early on Sunday, authorities said.
The vessel had set sail from Turkey several days ago with migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries, and crashed in stormy weather near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on the eastern coast of Calabria.
The provisional death toll stood at 45, Manuela Curra, a provincial government official, told Reuters. Eighty-one people survived, with 22 of them taken to hospital, she said.
One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges, the Guardia di Finanza customs police said.
Earlier, the Mayor of Cutro, Antonio Ceraso, told the SkyTG24 news channel that women and children were among the dead.
He said the migrants’ wooden boat had “disintegrated” amid stormy sea conditions, with parts of the wreckage ruins strewn across some 300 metres of the coast.
His voice cracking up, Ceraso said he witnessed “a spectacle that you would never want to see in your life … a gruesome sight … that stays with you for all your life.”-Reuters
