Funerals for 24 people killed in the worst ever recorded capsizing of a migrant boat in the Mediterranean have been held in Malta. More than 800 people died in Sunday’s disaster. Italian police say the captain crashed the boat by mistake against a merchant rescue ship. BBC was there:
The number of deaths in such incidents has now reached 1,750 so far this year. EU leaders are holding an emergency summit later to find ways to stem the number of people risking their lives. The 24 men laid to rest here were mourned, even though their names are unknown.
Their plain, dark wood coffins were slowly carried from the hospital mortuary on the shoulders of members of Malta’s armed forces, along a route lined with bouquets of flowers.
Migrants who themselves made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life joined Maltese government officials and international representatives in a white marquee erected on the helicopter pad outside Valletta’s Mater Dei hospital.
As the coffins were set down on a red carpet, women from Somalia, Eritrea and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa wept openly, wiping away tears with their headscarves.
