Tanker carries 221 shipwreck survivors to safety in Italy | iNFOnews.ca
Hundreds of Afghan migrants backed by an Anti-racism activist group protest outside the abandoned old airport which is used as a shelter for over 3,500 refugees and migrants, in southern Athens, on Friday, May 3 , 2016. A search-and-rescue operation across the Mediterranean saved 340 people Friday and recovered nine bodies, while in a separate incident over 100 bodies have been recovered from the Mediterranean coast of Libya after a smuggling boat overturned. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Tanker carries 221 shipwreck survivors to safety in Italy

ATHENS, Greece – A Norwegian tanker carrying 221 migrants who survived a shipwreck Friday is expected to arrive shortly at the Italian port of Augusta on the island of Sicily.

The Greek coast guard says Saturday the unnamed ship is also carrying the body of a migrant who drowned in Friday’s shipwreck of a smuggling boat that sank in the southern Mediterranean Sea.

The other 97 survivors of the shipwreck and the bodies of 9 other victims are being taken back to Egypt by Egyptian ships.

According to information from survivors, about 350 people boarded the smuggling boat that sank off Egypt. Egyptian authorities are still searching for those missing.

The human trafficking route from North Africa to southern Europe has claimed the lives of over 1,000 migrants in the last two weeks.

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