Other Boats
A second boat, similar to that which capsized, carrying 350 people was rescued by an Italian merchant ship in the same area of sea on 29 March after it was spotted by a nearby oil platform. Two similar boats have arrived in Italy within the past week and a further two remain missing, as they had left Libya and have not yet arrived in Italy. Coastguards from the two countries are continuing the search for the latter two boats. The capsized boat and the two which are missing are thought to have carried at least 500 people, of whom 200 were Nigerian.
The smuggling season normally runs from April to October but this year boats have been sailing throughout the winter, which brings poor weather.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Mediterranean Sea Migrant Shipwreck
Famous quotes containing the word boats:
“The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)