26 teenage women were found dead at sea. Italian officials wonder if they were killed.
They were all between 14 and 18 years old
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Marwa Eltagouri and Herman Wong.
The gruesome discovery Sunday of the bodies of more than two dozen migrant women in the Mediterranean Sea has left Italian officials wondering whether the women were purposely killed, and why all who died were female.
Lorena Ciccotti, police chief in the southern Italian port city of Salerno, told CNN that officials have launched an investigation into the women’s cause of the death to see if they had been tortured or sexually assaulted. Officials believe the 26 women, who are all Nigerian and range from 14 to 18 years old, died attempting the dangerous journey from Libya to Europe over the weekend.
From Libya to Italy
Libya is the biggest launchpad for African migrants hoping to build new lives in Europe. Since the collapse of Moammar Gaddafi’s regime, the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya has soared. Sub-Saharan Africans wishing to flee poverty or war have taken advantage of Libya’s power vacuum, which has allowed smugglers to operate, for the most part, without restraint. Migrants’ desire to reach Italy — a country in close proximity to Libya — has made the North African country a center for human smuggling.
The trip across the Mediterranean is deadly — about 58 percent of the refugees who have died this year during their cross-border migration have drowned in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The route from sub-Saharan Africa to Libya is also dangerous, especially for women. Women might endure sexual assault and rape and contract HIV as a result. One humanitarian worker told The Washington Post about women she had met who were penetrated with objects such as guns. Perpetrators of sexual violence include security forces, smugglers and men aboard the rescue boats.
In February, UNICEF reported that levels of sexual violence and abuse along the Central Mediterranean migration route made it one of “the world’s deadliest and most dangerous migrant routes for children and women.”
The tragedy
Twenty-three of the women were discovered near a rubber dinghy that officials believe sank on Friday, according to AFP. The women’s bodies were found in the Mediterranean by a Spanish vessel.
A top Salerno official, Salvatore Malfi, said the women may have been thrown off their rubber dinghy into the waters of the Mediterranean, according to NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli. “The cause of death appears to be by drowning.”
The Spanish ship managed Sunday to rescue 90 women and 52 minors, including a newborn, officials told CNN. The rescue was one of four that altogether saved about 400 people over the course of the weekend.
The numbers
So far this year through Nov. 1:
- 151,000 migrants survived the journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.
- Almost 75 percent of those migrants — about 111,500 people — landed in Italy, with the rest reaching the shores of Greece, Cyprus and Spain.
- More than 2,800 migrants have died attempting the journey.
Since 2014:
- More than 400,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy.
But the Italian government, facing an unending flow of people from Africa and an increase in anti-migrant sentiments from its people, wants to limit the thousands of refugees arriving on its shores each month. The government has therefore agreed to pay Libyan militias willing to clamp down on human smuggling as part of an unusual deal.
An investigation
Malfi, the Salerno official, told AFP that investigators would look to see if the women had been assaulted.
“They were on a dinghy that was also carrying men,” he told Italian reporters who asked whether the women were on a sex-trafficking boat.
