The fire then spread, sowing panic on board which caused the boat to flip over and eventually sink. We were 500 on that boat, we could hardly move,” one survivor said, ANSA reported.“We have 92 dead and 151 people saved.“They have been in the water since the early hours of the morning,” Nicolini said. Shaken survivors wrapped in thermal blankets — many of them bare-chested — were seen arriving on the dock in images shown on Italian television, as an emergency worker broke down in tears.“3 fishing boats spotted us during the crossing but did not rescue us,” he said.Prosecutors have opened an inquiry for multiple murders, as well as favouring illegal immigration.On Monday, 13 Eritrean asylum-seekers drowned as they tried to swim ashore when their boat ran aground off Sicily near the city of Ragusa.There has been an increase in the incidents off Italy in recent weeks amid an upsurge in arrivals — mainly from Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Syria.“There are still hundreds missing,” he added.“We received the first alert at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) when a boat reported people in the water,” he said.

We are looking for more survivors in the water,” a coast guard spokesman told AFP, adding that the search had been going on for more than 6 hours.Italian prime minister Enrico Letta called the incident “an immense tragedy” in a tweet.“The first assistance was provided by people on pleasure boats who heard the screams,” Antonino Candela, a local emergency medical worker, said.Giusi Nicolini, the mayor of Lampedusa island near where the incident happened, told news channel SkyTG24: “The survivors are in a state of shock”.

“We left 2 days ago from the Libyan port of Misrata.At least 92 people drowned and around 200 were believed missing after a boat carrying up to 500 African asylum seekers caught fire and sank off the Italian coast on Thursday, officials said.“This is shameful,” the pope said at a Vatican conference.Nicolini said the migrants had told her they lit a small fire on their boat around half a mile from the shore to attract the attention of coast guards after their vessel suffered engine failure.“We don’t need ambulances unfortunately, we need hearses,” Bartolo said.At least 92 people drowned and around 200 were believed missing after a boat carrying up to 500 African asylum seekers caught fire and sank off the Italian coast on Thursday, officials said. “Let us join forces so these tragedies never happen again.“I am dismayed at the rising global phenomenon of migrants and people fleeing conflict or persecution and perishing at sea,” UN High commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The accident was the latest in many drownings involving migrants travelling on rickety fishing boats or rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean, where thousands have died in recent years. We have to mobilise, do something concrete to avoid these constant tragedies of despair”.The bodies were being taken to a hangar at the local airport because there was no more room in the local morgue on the remote southern Italian island, which has a population of around 6,000. I1.“This is a tragedy without precedent.Lampedusa is an Italian island lying between Tunisia and Sicily and is a major entryway for asylum-seekers into the European Union, with thousands arriving every year.A young Tunisian man believed to be 1 of the crew members has been detained, ANSA reported.”The local archbishop, Francesco Montenegro, said: “We cannot keep on counting the dead.A local doctor said a 3-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl were among the victims.Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July to plead for more tolerance and attention to the plight of refugees, called for prayers..In a similar incident near Catania in another part of Sicily in August, 6 young Egyptian men drowned trying to reach the shore. In many years of work here I have never seen anything like this,” Pietro Bartolo, a local doctor, was China Silicone Rubber O-Rings Suppliers quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA as saying.As hopes faded of finding more survivors, the coast guard, border patrol, fire brigade and navy were all taking part in the search and were joined by fishing trawlers and pleasure boats.The asylum-seekers said they were from Eritrea and Somalia and local police were quoted as saying they believed the boat had left from Libyan shores