Migrant crisis: 40 die after ‘suffocation’ on a boat

The captain of the navy vessel leading the rescue off the coast of Libya said victims were found “immersed in water and fuel”.

The victims are thought to have suffocated after inhaling fumes from fuels after the boat took on water in the hold.

Speaking from the ship, Commander Massimo Tozzi said that when his men boarded the migrant boat they found the dead in the hold “immersed in water, fuel and human excrement”.

An Italian news agency said the boat was 21 miles off Libya and carrying amore than 300 migrants.

Admiral Pierpaolo Libuffo, head of Italy’s rescue operations, told Italian television that 312 survivors had been taken on board, including 45 women and 3 children.

The boat, which was being towed to the Italian island of Lampedusa, had not capsized.

This is the second fatal incident in the Mediterranean in the last month. Last Tuesday, up to 50 migrants went missing when a large rubber dinghy sank in the Mediterranean Sea.

The migrant crisis has sprawled across the Mediterranean as thousand fleeing war-torn countries attempt to reach Europe in search of a better life.

More than 2,000 migrants have died at sea so far this year as many continually put their lives at risk.

At least 100,000 have arrived in Italy so far this year and thousands more have crossed from Syria and Turkey into Greece.

Tensions have flared on the Greek island of Kos in the last few days as hundreds of migrants have been waiting outside the Antagoras stadium to be registered.

The Greek island has struggled to cope with the massive flux of migrants and a cruise ship has arrived intended to temporarily house 2,500 of them.

The Geneva-based organisation said the number of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year is approaching a quarter of a million, compared with 219,000 for all of last year.