Smugglers involved in double migrant boat disaster held

(ANSA) - Ragusa, June 10 - Police on Tuesday were holding two alleged smugglers from Senegal at the centre of Monday's double migrant boat tragedy in the Sicilian channel that took place just as rescue operations were being carried out. Babacar Gueye, 25, and Sekou Sara Elhadji, 29, both from Senegal, were at the helm of two dinghies respectively holding 107 and 111 migrants that had been intercepted off the southern coast of Sicily when the latest in a long string of boat disasters occurred.
    Gueye's boat was intercepted by the Maltese petrol tanker Norient Star but suffered a puncture and deflated during berthing, flipping the migrants on board - who were all reportedly wearing life jackets - into the water.
    Three people died as a result of the incident and a further two were still missing. Separately, four people fell from Elhadji's boat while trying to climb a rope ladder to safety after being rescued by the motorboat Peruvian Refeer and were pulled underwater by strong currents.
    Their bodies have not been found. Gueye and Elhadji both reprtedly offered to drive the boats on behalf of traffickers as they didn't have the resources to pay for their own crossing. Italy is struggling to cope with a massive increase this year in the already big flow of migrants who attempt the hazardous crossing from North Africa.
    Almost 40,000 migrants landed on Italy's shores in the first five months of this year - almost as many as the total for all of 2013.
    Many thousands more have arrived so far in June after being rescued by Italian authorities as part of the Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Operation launched after around 400 people were killed on two migrant-boat disasters in October.