John Phillips
ROME
Up to 500 migrants are missing and feared drowned after people smugglers sank the boat which was carrying them 300 miles off the coast of Malta last week, according to two Palestinian survivors of the drama.
The smugglers carried out the sinking from a second boat after a violent clash with the migrants broke out, the pair told officials of the International Organisation for Migration (OIM).
OIM officials said on Monday the two Palestinians, who fled from Gaza to Egypt in September, were plucked from the sea by the Panamanian flagged freighter Pegasus which took them to the port of Pozzallo two days ago.
"If this story, which the police are investigating, should be confirmed it would be the gravest case of recent years since it was not an accident, but a mass murder perpetrated by criminals without scruples or respect for human life," the OIM said.
The boatload of 500 Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese, many of them families with children or unaccompanied minors, left the Egyptian port of Damietta on September 6, according to the two witnesses.
- Vessel rammed
The smugglers asked the migrants on Wednesday to move to a much smaller craft.
After many of them refused, the smugglers used another boat to ram the migrants' vessel and sink it.
Most of the 500 fell in the sea and drowned while only a few managed to stay afloat, including the two Palestinians, the pair said.
One of the two said he was one of seven people left hanging onto a life raft, but the others all gradually succumbed to weariness and drowned.
A further eight migrants from the 500 were plucked from the sea by Egyptian and Maltese vessels.
- 'Criminal organizations'
After a day-and-a-half in the water, the two were picked up by the Pegasus which was taking to Sicily 386 people plucked from another boat which had been trying to reach Italy.
The OIM said in a statement: "The only way to neutralize these criminal organizations is to start opening legal entry channels to Europe for all people, men, women and children, who flee from their countries in search of protection."
A further 200 people are believed to have drowned off the coast of Libya in a separate incident last weekend, according to Libyan authorities.
Italy recently asked other EU countries to join the Italian Navy’s ongoing Mare Nostrum operation in the Mediterranean, which has saved thousands of migrants trying to flee Africa for Europe.
France and Spain have pledged to help contribute to a new EU naval force that would be modeled on the multi-national EU anti-piracy naval force in the Horn of Africa.
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