Two men who were among 41 people picked up over the weekend from a boat found adrift in the Mediterranean Sea today described surviving what they say was a shipwreck that might have killed up to 500 people.
If confirmed, the sinking, which would have taken place sometime last week, would be one of the deadliest migrant boat sinkings in the Mediterranean. So far, there has been no independent confirmation of a mass casualty tragedy at sea.
The coast guard authorities of Italy, Greece, Libya and Egypt haven't confirmed a sinking, and there haven't yet been any reports of bodies or debris washing ashore.
Muaz Mahmud Aymo, a 25-year-old Ethiopian, and Mowlid Isman, a 28-year-old Somali, said they had been heading to Italy, leaving the Libyan port city of Tobruk at night on a boat with about 200 people on board. They said smugglers forced them onto a larger boat, which they said already had about 300 people on board although it was dark and they couldn't see inside.
The larger boat sank during the transfer of people from the smaller vessel, they said, and all died except 31 people who were still on the smaller boat and 10 more, including the two of them, who were picked up from the sea by Somalis who were still on the smaller boat.
"The people all, they die on that ocean," said Aymo, who said his 2-month-old baby and 20-year-old wife were among the fatalties. Isman said he lost his sister and his sister's baby.
Aymo said the smugglers had told them the journey, for which each passenger paid USD 1,800, would be safe.
"They say: 'You are gonna go to Italy. Today. Tonight. No problem. You are safe,'" he told reporters in Athens. But the smugglers forced them onto the larger boat, which he described as a wooden vessel of about 30 meters. Both said they saw those on board struggling in the water and dying.
"We saw the dead people with our eyes," Isman said, speaking through an interpreter.
They managed to swim to the smaller boat and get on board, but the smuggler who was navigating refused to wait and help others still struggling in the sea, the two said. Instead, he motored away, ignoring the pleas from the crying survivors and at one point brandishing a knife at Aymo and threatening to kill him, he said.
