The Italian authorities have recovered the bodies of six migrants who drowned when their boat hit a sandbank dawn just meters from a tourist beach at Catania in Sicily. It thought the victims jumped off the overcrowded fishing boat thinking they reached the shore. About 100 other migrants on the boat came ashore safely. David Willey reports from Rome.
Fine weather and calm seas in recent days have meant an increased in arrivals on the Italian islands of Sicily and Lampedusa of undocumented migrants from the Middle East and from North Africa. This is the first major arrival of refugees from the civil war in Syria on the Mediterranean Island. The human traffickers who make huge profits dumping migrants on Italian shores often abandon their passengers as soon as Italian or Maltese coast guards spot them.
Spanish police say they’ve broken up a human trafficking ring arresting 75 people smugglers in Spain and France. A spokesman said the group was trafficking Chinese nationals into European countries and the United States for fees of up to 50,000 euros per person.
World News from the BBC
A volcano has erupted on a small island in central Indonesia killing six people. Pictures show Mount. Rokatenda sending a whole cloud of ash over the island of Palue and into the sea. Among the dead were three adults and two children who’d been sleeping in a village by the beach.
A bus carrying members of the Moroccan royal guard has crashed into a ravine killing at least 16 guardsmen and injuring more than 40 others. Officials said the guardsmen who accompanied King Mohammed at official in ceremonial event were traveling between the coastal towns of Tetouan and al-Hoceima when the bus driver lost control of the vehicle on a bend.