Funerals held for Mediterranean boat tragedy victims

European officials have honoured the dead of the Mediterranean’s worst-ever migrant disaster as more would-be refugees arrived in Italy and prosecutors questioned the suspected smugglers.

Twenty-four caskets containing the only bodies recovered from the weekend capsizing that left an estimated 800 dead were laid out for an interfaith memorial service on the grounds of Malta’s main hospital.

Wails from members of Malta’s African community punctuated the ceremony, which included Christian and Muslim prayers.

Gozo Bishop Mario said during the service: “We mourn them, because irrespective of our creed, nationality, race, we know that they are our fellow human beings.”

Malta’s president and prime minister, Italy’s interior minister and the EU’s migration commissioner attended.

“Europe is declaring war on smugglers, and the union will collaborate with international partners,” EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference after the memorial.

Only 28 people survived the capsizing of the migrant boat last weekend and 24 bodies were recovered, including that of an adolescent whose remains were placed in the lone white casket for burial.

Catania prosecutors have accused the suspected captain, Mohammad Ali Malek, 27 from Tunisia, and crew member Mahmud Bikhit, a 25-year-old Syrian, of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. The captain is also accused of multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and sequestering people, given that the hull and lower deck of the boat were bolted closed, sealing the migrants in.

They were being questioned today before a judge who must decide whether to confirm their arrests.

Malek’s lawyer, Massimo Ferrante, has denied his client was responsible.

Meanwhile, early today Italy’s border patrol brought 220 migrants rescued some 40 miles off the coast of Libya to Catania, Sicily, the coast guard said.

EU chiefs holding an extraordinary summit face calls from all sides to take emergency action to save lives in the Mediterranean, where hundreds of migrants have died and many others are missing and feared drowned.

The leaders will examine a plan to respond to the crisis, after more than 10,000 migrants were plucked from the sea between Italy and Libya in a week, and are widely expected to approve swift action.

EU president Donald Tusk urged the leaders from the 28 nations “to agree on very practical measures”, including “strengthening search-and-rescue possibilities, by fighting the smugglers and by discouraging their victims from putting their life at risk, while reinforcing solidarity”.

EU officials say the leaders will commit to doubling the size of the European border agency effort in the Mediterranean, but those operations are designed for monitoring migrant movements, not necessarily saving lives.

A senior EU official said they are also expected to give the green light for a pilot project to resettle around 5,000 refugees.

That resettlement plan would amount to about half of those who have arrived in just the last week and a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands likely to arrive this year.