Twelve Nigerian and Ghanaian migrants were thrown overboard following a fight concerning their Christian religion, Italian police said yesterday. The police said 15 African Muslim migrants have arrested over the incident.
Fifteen Muslim migrants, believed to be from Senegal, Ivory Coast ,and Mali, were arrested, accused of having thrown the
Christians from Ghana and Nigeria into the sea after the fight broke out.
The incident aboard the rubber dinghy, which was carrying about 100 migrants, took place in the Strait of Sicily, between Tunisia and Italy.
They are suspected of being responsible for “multiple aggravated murders, motivated by religious hatred”, police said.
“The threats then materialised and 12 people, all Nigerian and Ghanaian, are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean,” they said.
The attackers were identified by other refugees, some of whom were in tears as they recounted the story to Italian authorities.
In a separate migrant tragedy, as many as 41 migrants were feared drowned after refugee boat sank in the Mediterranean, Italian media reported.
Four survivors reported the incident to Italian police and humanitarian organizations.
The four survivors said they were originally from Sub-Saharan Africa and had left the city of Tripoli in Libya on Saturday.
They then stayed adrift for four days before their boat was wrecked, the IOM spokesman said in a statement.
“It appears that the four were found floating in the sea by a helicopter and were then rescued by the military ship Foscari,” the IOM said.
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