ROME // At least 134 people were killed on Thursday after a ship carrying African migrants to Europe caught fire and capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
More than 150 people were rescued but about the same number were missing.
It was one of the deadliest incidents in the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing that thousands of African migrants make every year, seeking a new life in the European Union. Smugglers charge thousands of dollars a head to slip people into Europe aboard overcrowded, barely seaworthy fishing boats, providing no life vests or other safety features.
“We need only caskets, certainly not ambulances,” Pietro Bartolo, chief of health services on Lampedusa, said. He gave the death toll at 94 but said it would certainly rise as search operations continued.
“It’s an immense tragedy,” said Giusi Nicolini, the Lampedusa mayor.
Italy’s coastguard later said divers saw at least another 40 bodies around the boat, which was now lying on the bottom of the sea.
Lampedusa is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland – a mere 113 kilometres off the coast of Tunisia – and is the frequent destination for smugglers’ boats.
The 20-metre boat was believed to be carrying 450 to 500 people, according to the International Organisation for Migration. The boat left from Tripoli with migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, the Italian coastguard said.
Antonio Candela, a government health commissioner, said 159 people had been rescued.
Rescue crews hauled body bags by the dozens off coastguard ships on Thursday and lined them up under multicoloured tarps on Lampedusa’s docks. At sea, Italian coastguard ships, local fishing boats and helicopters from across the region combed the waters, trying to find survivors.
“Most of them can’t swim. Only the strongest survived,” said Simona Moscarelli, a legal expert for the IOM in Rome.
Only three of the estimated 100 women on board have been rescued so far and none of the 10 children believed on board were saved, she said. Two of the dead were pregnant.
The interior minister Angelino Alfano said the ship began taking on water during the night after the motor was cut as it neared Conigli island off Lampedusa, a tiny speck of an island closer to Africa than the Italian mainland.
Usually smugglers have cellphones or satellite phones to call for help when they near shore or run into trouble, but this time they didn’t. Instead, someone on board set fire to a piece of material to attract the attention of passing ships, only to have the fire spread to the ship.
The passengers all moved to one side to avoid the fire, flipping the ship and spilling hundreds of men, women and children into the sea.
Mr Alfano was one of several Italian officials who demanded the European Union do more to put an end to the smuggling operations and help border countries like Italy cope.
“Let us hope that the European Union realises this isn’t an Italian problem but a European one,” he said.
Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July to bemoan the frequent deaths of migrants, quickly sent his condolences.
“It is shameful!” he said during an audience at the Vatican.
Thursday’s disaster was the second shipwreck this week off Italy: On Monday, 13 men drowned while trying to reach southern Sicily when their ship ran aground just a few metres from shore.
While it was the deadliest such incident off Italy in recent times, Mr Moscarelli said there had been similar or greater losses of life farther out at sea and off the Libyan coast in recent years.
Libya, from where the migrants left about two days ago, is a frequent departure point for migrants.
“There are lots of Eritreans in detention centres in Libya,” Mr Moscarelli said. “These people are not economic migrants. They are fleeing persecution,” often from their military service.
* Associated Press with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
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- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
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The fake news generation
288,000 – the number of posts reported as hate speech that were deleted by Facebook globally each month in May and June this year
11% – the number of Americans who said they trusted the news they read on Snapchat as of June 2017, according to Statista. Over a quarter stated that they ‘rarely trusted’ the news they read on social media in general
31% - the number of young people in the US aged between 10 and 18 who said they had shared a news story online in the last six months that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate
63% - percentage of Arab nationals who said they get their news from social media every single day.
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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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At Manchester United Appearances: 559; Goals: 253
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
