Italian Navy 'let Immigrants Drown'

The Italian navy was accused last night of doing little to help shipwreck victims as more than 50 immigrants were feared drowned when their boat capsized in heavy seas off the southern coast of Sicily.

The tragedy occurred at around 8pm on Thursday as the boat, laden with illegal immigrants believed to be mainly west Africans, Palestinians and Turkish Kurds, was being towed by an Italian fishing vessel towards the island of Lampedusa.

Nine men were rescued by the fishing boat while an Italian naval patrol boat on the scene picked up just two.

"The navy's rescue efforts? They might have done more," said Francesco Giacalone, the boatswain on the Elide fishing vessel.

The bodies of 12 victims, five of them women, had been recovered last night.

Mr Giacalone told the news agency Ansa that the Elide had asked the Italian navy fisheries protection vessel Cassiopea to take over the towing when it arrived on the scene, some 60 miles south of the island of Lampedusa.

"It seemed the safest solution to us. They said no, telling us we were doing fine.

"A quarter of an hour later, the boat sank," he told the agency.

The captain of the Elide, Vito Diodato, said he had begun towing the overloaded boat after he found it wallowing in large waves with engine trouble. It overturned after being hit by a particularly large wave.

"We couldn't reduce our speed because the engine cuts out at low speed," he said.

Mr Giacalone said the fishermen had asked the navy to send a doctor by helicopter to assist one of the injured immigrants, only to be told to proceed to Lampedusa, where there was a hospital.

"Only after the boat had sunk and disappeared under the waves and the bodies were disappearing underwater did they launch a lifeboat, but they only managed to save two," he said.

"They might have thought about it a bit sooner."

Mr Diodato told Ansa: "It was a terrible scene: desperate voices calling for help, dozens of arms reaching towards us out of the darkness. It looked like the Apocalypse."

The most shocking image was that of a woman trying to hold on to a bottle of water as a fight broke out around her and someone punched her in the face, said crew member Nicola Castello.

"She was shouting with fear and exhausted, and she didn't make it," Mr Castell said.

"She slipped slowly into the black waters before we could hoist her on board."