Italy Jails Shipwreck Captain for 18 Years
An Italian court sentenced a Tunisian man to 18 years in prison for captaining the boat involved in the deadliest-known shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea.
The court found 28-year-old Mohammed Ali Malek guilty of multiple manslaughter and people-smuggling for the collision between the overloaded fishing vessel and a Portuguese merchant ship that was coming to its rescue in April 2015. Nearly 700 people drowned when the boat sank; only 28 survived.
Malek denies being the ship’s captain and claims he was just a passenger. He is appealing the conviction.
The court also sentenced Mahmud Bikhit, a 26-year-old Syrian accused of being Malek’s first mate, to five years in prison for people-smuggling. They were both fined 9 million euros ($9.5 million).
The ship was carrying passengers from Algeria, Somalia, Egypt, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Bangladesh and Ghana. Firefighters in Sicily who retrieved hundreds of bodies from the shipwreck said many were trapped in the hull and engine room and struggled in vain to get out.
U.N. Documents Rape, Torture and Forced Labor of Migrants in Libya
The United Nations warned of a “human rights crisis” in Libya after documenting the widespread abuse, torture and sexual exploitation of migrants in the country.
Migrants smuggled or trafficked into Libya are held in official and unofficial detention centers, where they are packed into overcrowded cells strewn with human waste, the report said.
Even in state-run detention centers, migrants are not registered and have no access to the legal process. Meanwhile, armed groups and criminal gangs run their own detention facilities, where they force migrants to work and extort money from their relatives.
“We are called animals and are treated as animals,” a 16-year-old Eritrean boy told U.N. researchers.
The report also documents widespread physical and sexual violence against the migrants, and says Sudanese women are taking a three-month contraceptive injection before arriving in Libya because of the threat of rape.
Afghan Child Returnees at Risk of Early Marriage, Forced Labor
Afghans returning from Pakistan, many of them without documents or money, are considering sending their children to work or arranging for their early marriage, according to a survey by Save the Children.
The charity interviewed 379 Afghans between October 28 and November 8 who had returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province. They are part of the mass return of more than 650,000 Afghans this year, after Pakistan set a deadline for them to leave the country.
Save the Children found that nearly half of Afghan children who returned from Pakistan are not in school. More than 70 percent of returnee parents and community leaders told the charity that these children are at risk of early marriage and child labor.
“Part of the problem is that many repatriated families left stable jobs and lives in Pakistan and are now watching the few savings they have dwindle away knowing they have little prospect of income,” said Ana Locsin, Save the Children’s Afghanistan country director.
Recommended Reads:
- The Washington Post: Syrian Immigration to the U.S. Has Been a Success, Study Finds
- E.U. Observer: E.U. Migration Policy Is Cruel and Nonsensical
- The Guardian: Hamid Kehazaei Inquest Exposes Failures of Australia’s Secretive Immigration Regime
- The Associated Press: Loophole in E.U.-Turkey Deal Draws Migrants to River Crossing
- The Conversation: What Good Does the Global Forum on Migration and Development Do?