CATANIA: Italian authorities arrested two survivors of Sunday’s migrant boat disaster on suspicion of people trafficking, Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio said today after the men arrived in the Sicilian port of Catania.
Italian police interviewed 27 survivors of the wreck as they were brought to Italy on a coast guard vessel. As many as 900 people are believed to have drowned.
Delrio said Catania state prosecutor Giovanni Salvi, who has opened a homicide investigation into the disaster, ordered the arrest of the two. Officials from the prosecutor’s office said they were the captain of the vessel and his first mate.
“Prosecutor Salvi has made two arrests this evening of persons involved, that shows the Italian justice is working,” Delrio told reporters at the port. --REUTERS
