Suffocated and drowned: Ten people died while trying to reach Europe on a wooden boat. Other passengers were rescued.
The German aid organization Resqship says it has discovered ten bodies on a migrant boat off the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. The crew of the motor sailing ship “Nadir” found a wooden boat in distress south of the small island on Monday night with 61 people on board, the NGO reported. The crew initially took the people on board the “Nadir” on the upper deck, then discovered the ten bodies and two unconscious people on the lower deck.
According to Resqship, the ten people in the lower deck either suffocated as a result of petrol fumes or drowned unconscious in the flooded hull of the ship. In order to reach one of the two unconscious people, the crew had to open the deck with an axe because the boat was in danger of sinking.
After the rescue operation, the 51 survivors were handed over to the Italian coast guard. The “Nadir” towed the wooden boat with the bodies of the ten young men on board towards Lampedusa.
