Twenty-nine migrants who fled Libya drowned in the lower deck of their boat, autopsies carried out on the majority of the corpses in Malta yesterday have indicated, according to sources.
The victims, including one woman, were towed into port in the same boat in which they drowned on Sunday, hours after an incident off Lampedusa.
The Armed Forces of Malta said on Saturday that a stampede may have been behind the deaths. The nationalities and identities of the victims have not yet been updated.
It was decided by mutual agreement that the dead bodies were to be taken to Malta
The fishing boat, carrying around 400 people, started taking in water on Friday, nine hours from land, before a Danish merchant ship raised the alarm.
The majority were rescued and taken to Lampedusa, while the bodies were brought to Malta apart from an infant whose parents refused to let go of him. Another survivor also died on the way to Italy, bringing the death toll to 31.
A spokeswoman from the Home Affairs Ministry said the migrants were taken to Lampedusa since it was the closest safest port.
“This operation was coordinated by Italy and Malta and it was decided by mutual agreement that the dead bodies were to be taken to Malta,” she added.
The Maltese authorities are following the incident to establish the cause of death of those who perished on the boat, which was in the search-and-rescue area of Malta. The authorities are trying to collect and secure all evidence “as far as possible”.
However she said no conclusion has yet been reached and it was too early to give indications of the circumstances leading to their death. A decision on their possible burial will be taken following an autopsy on the corpses.
Contacted for its comments, UNHCR Malta said all efforts should be made to ensure identification of victims of such tragedies at sea.
“This obviously applies in all cases regardless of whether the people involved are considered refugees or not. Even in cases where identification may not at the moment be possible it should be ensured that DNA samples are available for potential analysis at a later stage,” a spokeswoman said.
So far, around 800 people are believed to have died trying to cross the central and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea this year, according to the UN refugee agency.
More than 2,700 people perished while crossing the sea between 2007 and 2013. The year 2011 was the deadliest with 1,500 victims, while another 500 died in just two incidents last year.