The Italian Navy says it has found the underwater
wreckage of a boat overloaded with migrants that capsized off the coast of
Libya, killing hundreds.
The boat that sank on April 19 is part of a larger
crisis that Europe is facing. Thousands of migrants from war-torn parts of the
Middle East and Africa set sail toward Italy in hopes of gaining a foothold
into the rest of the EU. The Italian
Navy estimates 800 people died when the boat capsized.
Twenty-eight people were rescued from the doomed
ship, and told investigators of the cramped conditions on the boat. Only 24
bodies were recovered in the area where the boat sank.
Among those who survived are the boat's suspected
pilot and his assistant. Both were arrested.
Italian prosecutors ordered an investigation into why
the boat sank, and the nation's Navy confirmed on Friday that it had found the
wreckage in the Mediterranean Sea, about 85 miles north of the Libyan coast, at
a depth of 375 meters.
The Navy recorded the wreckage on video, and the
prosecutor's office confirmed it was the boat that sank on April 19. Many
corpses could be seen in the first and second decks of the shipwreck, the Navy
said.
The boat's pilot may have caused the migrant ship to
tip over because of a navigation error, or the boat simply may have been
overcrowded, according to an earlier statement from the prosecutor's office.
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