Post-mortem examinations on the
bodies of 26 teenage migrant girls found dead in the Mediterranean in early
November confirmed they almost all drowned at sea, Italian news agencies
reported Wednesday.
The loss of the girls — believed to
be Nigerians aged 14 to 18 — has been described by the Nigerian foreign
ministry as “a monumental loss and a sad moment for our country”.
According to the post-mortems
carried out in Salerno in southern Italy, 25 of the girls died of asphyxiation
in the water, most of them when the inflatable dinghy they were travelling on
sank.
One girl suffered a wound to her
liver. Two of the dead were pregnant. The autopsies found no recent trace of
physical or sexual violence.
According to the UN, 80 percent of
young Nigerian women arriving in Italy are already in the clutches of
prostitution networks or quickly fall under their control.
The bodies of the victims were found
floating in the water by a Spanish military ship and brought to Italy on
November 3 after two separate rescue operations.
In both cases, dozens of other
migrants — mostly men but also women — were also rescued after they tried to
cross to Europe from Libya.
Family members who survived the
disaster have identified some of the victims. In other cases, investigators
managed to contact relatives after discovering phone numbers inside the
victims’ clothing.
Funerals for the 26 girls will take
place Friday in Salerno, where a day of mourning has been declared.
A white rose will be placed on each
coffin, while smaller roses will be placed for the two unborn children.
Nigeria has called for an
international investigation into the incident.
According to Italy’s interior
ministry, more than 111,700 people have reached the country by the sea in the
first 10 months of 2017, a decrease of 30 percent from the same period last
year. (GuardianNg)
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