Italy arrests two over migrant boat sinking

by Isabelle Roussel and Biodun Iginla, Reuters and BBC News, Rome

40 minutes ago

The captain and a crew member of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of migrants, have been arrested, Italian officials say.

The two, held on suspicion of people trafficking, were among 27 survivors who arrived in Sicily late on Monday.
The arrests come after the EU set out a package of measures to try to ease the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
Search and rescue operations will be stepped up and there will be a campaign to destroy traffickers' boats.
Italian Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio said the prosecutor of Catania in Sicily, Giovanni Salvi, had ordered the arrests of the two men who had arrived in the port on a coast guard vessel.
Other officials said the pair were the Tunisian captain of the migrant boat and his Syrian first mate.
"Prosecutor Salvi has made two arrests this evening of persons involved; that shows Italian justice is working," Mr Delrio told reporters in Catania.

A homicide investigation has been opened into the disaster, he added.
After speaking to the survivors, the UN refugee agency said that about 800 people died in Sunday's disaster. Earlier accounts had put the death toll at about 700.
"There were a little over 800 people on board, including children aged between 10 and 12," said Carlotta Sami, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy.
"There were Syrians, about 150 Eritreans, Somalians... They had left Tripoli at about 8am on Saturday."

Analysis: Katya Adler, BBC Europe editor

EU countries have approved boosting maritime and border patrols in the Mediterranean, targeting people smugglers and working with migrants' home countries and the nations they travel through to try to dissuade people from taking to the seas.
These proposals are not new but the sense of EU solidarity and common purpose is.
It's unlikely to last long, though.
Arguing and wrangling will almost certainly be back on the agenda at an emergency summit of EU leaders this Thursday as they hammer out the details of what to do next.

Can the EU agree on a solution?

Mr Salvi said hundreds of passengers had been locked below deck and hundreds more were crammed on to its upper deck.
It is believed the boat capsized when an attempted rescue by a Portuguese merchant ship caused panic. Only 28 people were rescued.
"They are completely shocked, they keep repeating themselves, saying they are the only survivors,' Francesco Rocca, president of the Italian Red Cross told the BBC after meeting the survivors at Catania.
"Some of them want to speak, some of them want to stay silent. You can imagine they are under a lot of pressure. It's the first time I see such a high level of shock. It's clear from their eyes."

'Sense of solidarity'

Earlier, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the 10-point package set out at talks in Luxembourg was a "strong reaction from the EU to the tragedies" and "shows a new sense of urgency and political will".
"We are developing a truly European sense of solidarity in fighting human trafficking - finally so."
The measures include an increase in the financial resources of Frontex, which runs the EU's Mediterranean rescue service Triton, and an extension of Triton's operational area.

The EU had been criticised over the scope of Triton, which replaced the larger Italian operation Mare Nostrum at the end of last year.
As the talks took place late on Monday, Italy and Malta said at least two other rescues were taking place.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said one of the vessels was a dinghy off the Libyan coast with about 100-150 people on board. The other was a larger boat carrying 300 people.
Earlier, the Greek coastguard said a vessel carrying dozens of migrants had run aground off the island of Rhodes. Three people had died and 80 were rescued, it said.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said Sunday's disaster off Libya was "a game changer", adding: "If Europe doesn't work together history will judge it very badly."
Continued political instability in Libya has allowed human trafficking there to flourish.
Ms Mogherini said they had discussed the possibility of supporting a government of national unity in Libya.