'They died like rats in a cage': Survivor describes how hundreds were locked in hold by smugglers

[Surya Gayatri]

Smugglers reportedly locked 300 people in the hold

There may have been as many as 950 people on board the boat that capsized in the Mediterranean sea on Saturday night — feared to be the most deadly disaster ever of its kind.

So far 28 survivors have been rescued, and many of them have offered different accounts as to how many others were on board.

One of the rescued, a 32-year old man from Bangladesh, told Italian prosecutors there were 950, a number far larger than the 700 figure widely reported.

The man said about 300 people had been locked in the hold by smugglers when the boat set out. He said that aboard the vessel were 200 women and several dozen children.

These small numbers make sense if, as some survivors have indicated, hundreds of people had been locked in the hold — because with so much weight down below, "surely the boat would have sunk," explained General Antonino Iraso of the Italian Border Police.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/migrant-boat-disaster-survivor-says-there-were-950-people-aboard--but-the-true-figure-may-never-be-known-10188633.html

_____________________
The reports are getting more and more harrowing. No wonder searchers are only finding a few bodies. The rest went down with the ship.

[cali]

1. Horrific. This just keeps getting worse and worse. thanks

for keeping up with this nightmare story.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. I somehow feel it as a duty to "Les Misérables" at Europe's door.