Sudanese sisters die in Mediterranean crossing
The three children had left Libya with their mother and brother, hoping to reach Italy. International estimates suggest that this Mediterranean crossing has claimed 30,000 lives in the past decade.
An overcrowded rubber dinghy ran into bad weather crossing the Mediterranean Sea, a German NGO reported on Sunday, resulting in the deaths of three sisters who had escaped war-torn Sudan.
Volunteers from the organisation RESQSHIP found the bodies of the three, aged 9, 11, and 17 years old. They were part of a group of 65 refugees who left Libya on Friday night in the battered vessel, hoping to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa.
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Their mother and brother were amongst those rescued, the group said.
"The boat was really overcrowded and partially deflated," Barbara Satore, one of the rescuers, told The Associated Press. "It was a really pitch dark night with 1.5 meter (4.9 feet) waves, and the boat had been taking on water for hours."
"I heard a woman screaming and a man pointing into the water," Satore said, adding that weather conditions made the rescue extremely dangerous. "The medical team attempted resuscitation but they had been underwater for an extended period of time."
Satore said that their mother remained on the boat in shock, refusing to leave her daughters' side.
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