Italy Arrests One Person for the Murder of a Teenage Girl on Drowned Refugee Boat

Italian police reported the arrest of one of the survivors of the migrant boat that sank, accused of murdering a teenage Iraqi girl aboard the same vessel. The Italian Journalists' Agency reported on Wednesday, July 6, that this man, also Iraqi, had raped the girl after her death, although a police spokesperson did not confirm this in an interview with AFP. The police statement emphasizes that while the sailing boat was far from the Italian coast, this Iraqi man, after attacking and assaulting the 16-year-old girl, who was the child of another survivor of the boat, caused her choking. Italian police say the suspect is being held in Catanzaro prison, the capital of the Calabria region. Among the passengers of the sunken vessel, which had reached the coastal waters of Calabria from Turkey and then capsized, only 12 survived, and efforts to find the missing persons continue. Local authorities announced on Tuesday, July 5, that 35 more bodies were recovered during search efforts, bringing the death toll to 36, of which 15 were children. According to NGOs and reports from the victims' families, this sailing boat was carrying Kurdish migrants from Iraq and Iran along with several Afghan families. Zhila Mostajer, a board member of Hengaw, also stated on Radio Farda on July 1 that 20 of the deceased were Kurds from Iran, including from Piranshahr, Sardasht, Urmia, Sanandaj, and Boukan, whose names have been verified by Hengaw. On the same Tuesday, the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq announced that four individuals were arrested in connection with the deaths and disappearances of dozens of refugees due to the sinking of this boat in Italian waters. The Kurdistan Region's security organization, Asayish, announced in a statement that four individuals suspected of being leaders of migrant smuggling to Europe were arrested. Asayish only published the initials of the suspects' names, and a security officer from the Kurdistan Region told AFP that all of them were arrested in the Sulaymaniyah province of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Officials from the Kurdistan Region had also reported the arrest of a smuggler nicknamed 'Scorpion' last month, who is wanted by several European countries. The International Organization for Migration states that last year about 3,155 migrants lost their lives or went missing in the Mediterranean Sea, and this figure is about 1,000 in the first half of this year. The central Mediterranean migration route, where Italy is located, is the deadliest route in the world, accounting for 80% of deaths.