Update: October 14
Making it to Italy, tracking vessels and talking to people smugglers.
Episode two is live! This week we take a closer look at what it’s like on a refugee boat —one of those things you think you know about, until you realize that you really don’t know about it at all — and whether it’s possible that the Ghost Boat made it to Italy. Read, share, join in.
This Just In
Kirk Pettinga has asked a vessel-tracking service provider for a log of ships operating in the area where we believe the Ghost Boat sailed. Great idea. That data could point us towards other ships that may have seen the one we’re looking for.
As dangersquirrel points out, the Italian paper L’Espresso interviewed Measho Tesfamariam in November, shortly before he was arrested and charged with people smuggling. In that interview, Tesfamariam claims the boat left from the beach at Al-Khums, not Zuwarah. We’ve been in contact with the Italian journalists behind the report—more to come very, very soon.
Morsels
Ross Whiteford continued with a line of investigation about phones, by suggesting that cell service providers could help us figure out the last known position of the passengers’ phones.
A Task for You
Speaking of the smugglers — who feature pretty heavily in this week’s episode — we’d like to build up profiles of the suspected smugglers, and we need your help. Here’s some bare-bones information — what else can you dig up?
Onward.
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