Rescue of Lampedusa migrants caught on camera

Описание: The Italian coastguard has released footage of the moment that migrants were rescued from the waters off Lampedusa after their boat was shipwrecked.
Video footage shows a coastguard jumping into the water to rescue survivors of the Lampedusa boat disaster, which has thought to have claimed at least 300 lives.
Emergency services on the remote island - Italy's southernmost point - said they had recovered 111 bodies so far and rescued 155 survivors from a boat with an estimated 450 to 500 people on board.
The migrants, all Eritreans or Somalis, departed from the Libyan port of Misrata and told rescuers they had set fire to a blanket on board near Italian shores to attract the attention of coast guards after their boat began taking on water.
The fire quickly spread on the badly overcrowded 66ft vessel, which capsized and eventually sank in the early hours of Thursday morning just a few hundred metres from Lampedusa, as its terrified passengers jumped into the sea.
The boat's Tunisian skipper, already arrested in Italy in April for people trafficking and deported back to Tunisia, has been detained as prosecutors investigated on charges of multiple murder.
Flags flew at half mast across Italy and schools held a minute of silence for the victims while President Giorgio Napolitano has called for the overhaul of a law against facilitating illegal immigration that penalises potential rescuers.



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