Vito Fiorino woke up in his boat to piercing screams. It was 6am on October 3, 2013, and the Italian fisherman had spent a rare night out at sea with his crew, hoping for a good catch.
They scanned the dimly lit sky expecting to spot a flight of seagulls mewing in the distance. Instead, as the group sailed towards the noise, the scene that awaited them was one they had never seen.
“We woke up to an immeasurable tragedy,” Fiorino said. “There were hundreds of people in the sea, screaming and crying for help.”
A rickety trawler carrying asylum seekers from Eritrea and Somalia had capsized a short distance off Italy’s Lampedusa, a holidaymaker’s dream island known for its azure waters and sandy beach.
Only 155 people survived, while 368 people drowned.
The fishermen pulled 47 people onto their vessel before Italian authorities arrived.
Days later, on October 11, a second vessel loaded with mostly Syrians fleeing the war-ravaged country capsized some 32km (20 miles) off the coast, killing 268 people, including 60 children.
Source: Aljazeera.com
