The Telegraph (in the U.K.) published what may be a relevant story on June 30, 2014- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10935446/Italian-navy-finds-30-migrants-suffocated-in-boat.html “Italian navy finds 30 migrants ‘suffocated’ in boat — Grim discovery off coast of Sicily underlines scale of crisis as navy says it pulled more than 5,000 migrants from Mediterranean Sea over weekend.” The story goes on to say, “The deaths of 30 boat migrants prompted anger and frustration in Italy on Monday, as critics accused the government of failing to deal with an immigration crisis which has seen over 5,000 people rescued by the navy over the past weekend.” I find this both horrific and hopeful. June 2014 was the height of Operation Mare Nostrum, the rescue operation conducted by the Italian Navy and funded by the EU (and ended in October 2014). What happened to those 5,000 migrants rescued during that last weekend in June 2014? Were Seged and Abi among them? What happened to the bodies of those who died? Were they ever identified? What records, if any, were kept by the Italian Navy/Italian government during Operation Mare Nostrum? Any chance we could get access to flip through those pages? And regarding the confiscation of Seged’s cell phone by the smugglers, I’ve discovered that may have been standard operating procedure. The Guardian conducted an interview with a smuggler in Zuwara earlier this year describing the process, in which the smuggler mentioned, “Prior to embarking, the migrants all get a call,” says Ahmed, a former oil-rig technician. “They gather in a specific place. Transport takes them from that location in a safe house. All their phones get collected. They bring no luggage. They’re fed and watered and given access to toilets until the time to embark.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/libyas-people-smugglers-how-will-they-catch-us-theyll-soon-move-on Of course, whether or not this is true is anyone’s guess, but it would provide an explanation for why/how Seged’s phone ended up in the hands of a smuggler. Still, I have a hard time imagining anyone simply giving up their cell phone willingly.

Correction: Operation Mare Nostrum was decidedly NOT funded by the EU, but was apparently funded almost entirely by the Italian government. Operation Triton is the EU’s response to the end of Operation Mare Nostrum, but funding for Operation Triton is about a quarter of what Italy spent on Operation Mare Nostrum (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/20/italy-ran-an-operation-that-save-thousands-of-migrants-from-drowning-in-the-mediterranean-why-did-it-stop/)