Following
investigations by Italian prosecutors to discover what led to the death of 26
Nigerian women found on a Spanish warship in early November, post-mortem
examinations on the bodies confirmed ”they almost all drowned at sea,” Italian
news agencies reported Wednesday.
According to the autopsy carried out in Salerno
in southern Italy, 25 of the females died of asphyxiation in the water, when
the inflatable dinghy they were travelling on sank.
Reports further revealed that one female
suffered a wound to her liver, two of the dead were pregnant and the autopsies
found no recent trace of physical or sexual violence.
The bodies of the victims were found on Spanish
military ship and brought to Italy on November 3 after two separate rescue
operations. In both cases, dozens of other migrants, mostly men, were also
rescued after they tried to cross to Europe from Libya.
Family members, who survived the disaster, have
identified some of the victims and investigators managed to contact relatives
of others after discovering phone numbers inside the victims’ clothing.
Funerals for the 26 will take place on Friday
in Salerno, where a day of mourning has been declared.
A white rose will be placed on each coffin,
while smaller roses will be placed for the two unborn children.
According to Italy’s interior ministry, more
than 111,700 people have reached the country by sea in the first 10 months of
2017, a decrease of 30 per cent from the same period last year. The UN has said
80 per cent of young Nigerian women arriving in Italy are already in the
clutches of prostitution networks, or quickly fall under their control.
The Nigerian Foreign Ministry had described the
loss of the females, believed to be teenagers as “a monumental loss and a sad
moment for our country” and called for an international investigation into the
incident.
No comments:
Post a Comment