LÉ Niamh crew get break from rescues

A specialist team has flown out to Sicily to offer counselling to crew members on LÉ Niamh, who have been given a four-day break from migrant rescue operations.

The ship left the port of Messina yesterday on her way to Catania, also in Sicily, where the crew will get some rest and relaxation as well as the opportunity, if they so wish, to speak to counsellors in the wake of their discovery of 14 dead migrants on a wooden barge.

The bodies of the dead, who were among more than 500 migrants crammed “like sardines” into the barge, have been handed over to the Italian authorities who are carrying out an investigation into how they died.