Girl ‘strangled to loss of life whereas being raped on sinking migrant boat’

A teenage girl was raped and strangled to death by an Iraqi migrant as the boat they were on sank in the Mediterranean, horrified witnesses have claimed, with the attacker surviving the shipwreck that saw dozens killed off Italy.

Survivors claimed the man carried out the unspeakable attack after seeing his wife and daughter drown, Italian media reports, ‘venting’ his fury on the helpless 16-year-old girl.

The teenager was raped and suffocated in front of her distraught mother by the 27-year-old man as the sail boat sank, news agency AGI reports citing a police investigation. 

The man has since been arrested on suspicion of murdering the girl, who was also of Iraqi origin and had been making the journey to Europe with her mother. She survived the disaster and reported her daughter’s killing to police.

Only twelve people were rescued from the ship, which officials believe had been carrying around 70 people, including more than two dozen children. One of the survivors later died and more than half of the bodies have been recovered. 

In a statement, officers confirmed the sailing boat was adrift off Italy when the man ‘vented his aggression on a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, the daughter of another survivor, leading to her death by suffocation’. 

A police spokesperson did not immediately confirm details of the attack.

Those who made it out with their lives described their perilous journey, telling charity workers that ‘they were traveling without life jackets and that some boats did not stop to help them.’

The boat’s engine reportedly exploded, leaving it adrift, with pictures showing it sinking before it became completely submerged with only its mast visible.

The survivors were brought to the port of Roccella Ionica after the ordeal, which took place overnight between June 16 and 17. A female survivor later died.

Another 35 bodies were subsequently recovered from the water in search efforts, local authorities said on Tuesday, bringing the official toll of those who died to 36.

The bodies found at sea included 15 children.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organisation for Migration and UN children’s agency UNICEF said the migrants came from Iran, Syria and Iraq.

The ship originated in Turkey and was wrecked about 120 nautical miles off the southern coast of Italy.

The survivor accused of murder has been detained in prison in Catanzaro, the capital of the Calabria region, police said.

Security forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan on Tuesday announced the arrest of four suspected human traffickers over the shipwreck.

According to non-governmental organisations and accounts from victims’ families, the sailing boat was carrying mostly Kurdish migrants from Iraq and Iran, along with Afghan families.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration says about 3,155 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean last year and more than 1,000 people so far this year.

The Central Mediterranean migration route, on which Italy lies, is the deadliest in the world and accounts for 80 percent of the deaths on that sea.

Thousands of migrants depart from Libya and Tunisia by boat towards Europe, with Italy often the first landing point.

Many migrants from African nations embark on the trips from ports in Libya – where human traffickers have capitalised on the country’s instability.

Those from the Middle East often attempt to make the shorter but no less perilous journey west across the Mediterranean from Turkey, having arrived there from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Turkey in 2016 inked a deal with the EU to stop migrants and refugees crossing into Greece in return for some €6billion – later increased to €9billion – to provide infrastructure and humanitarian aid to the migrants it accepted.

Under the deal, Turkish authorities would prevent migrants from trying to reach Greece and accept the return of those who did.

For every migrant Turkey took back from Greece, the EU would allow one Syrian refugee in Turkey who had their asylum request approved to be permitted entry into an EU state. 

But in 2020 Ankara said the deal could no longer be enforced and began refusing to accept returns from Greece – a factor which may have contributed to the Greek coastguard’s alleged actions that resulted in migrant deaths. 

Earlier this month, Greece denied the findings of the BBC report that accused its coast guard of brutally preventing migrants from reaching Greek shores and alleged the practice had resulted in dozens of deaths.

Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis insisted that there was no evidence to support the allegations.

‘Our understanding is that what is reported is not proved,’ he told a regular press briefing when asked about the claims. 

‘Every complaint is looked into, and in the end, the relevant findings are made public.’

According to UN data, more than 23,500 migrants have died or gone missing in Mediterranean waters since 2014.

UN agencies called on EU governments to step up Mediterranean search and rescue efforts and expand legal and safe migration channels, so that migrants ‘are not forced to risk their lives at sea’.

Earlier this month 11 bodies were recovered from the sea off the coast of Libya, while last year another migrant boat that had set off from Turkey smashed into rocks just off the town of Cutro in Calabria, killing at least 94 people.