Iraqi girl raped, killed by fellow migrant on stranded ship: reports
Italian authorities are investigating the horrifying killing of a 16-year-old Iraqi girl allegedly raped and choked to death by a fellow migrant as their boat sank 120 miles off the coast of southern Italy.
The suspect, who is also from Iraq, supposedly attacked the teen in a rage after he saw his wife and daughter drown when the crowded migrant boat caught fire and capsized on June 17, the news agency AGI reported.
The girl was allegedly strangled in front of her mother, who reported the killing to the Italian state police after she, the killer and a few other survivors were rescued and brought to the Calabrian port of Roccella Ionica, Corriere Della Sera said.
The suspect, 27, was arrested on suspicion of voluntary homicide after the grieving mother’s account was backed up by other witnesses, the outlet reported.
“We are carrying out further investigations,” the local prosecutor, Giuseppe Casciaro, told Corriere Della Sera.
While the investigation is ongoing, the suspect is reportedly being held at the Catanzaro prison, where he was transferred after being hospitalized for injuries sustained in the shipwreck.
The suspect, the victim and her mother were among about 75 Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian migrants on board the doomed boat, which left Turkey in mid-June.
The group had been at sea for about eight days when the boat’s motor caught fire on the night of June 16, causing the craft to capsize.
Only 12 survivors were pulled from the wreck hours later. One of the rescued women later died on shore.
As of last week, the Italian coast guard had retrieved the bodies of 36 victims from the choppy waters off the Calabrian coast.
On Tuesday, security forces in Kurdistan, Iraq, announced that four suspects had been arrested on charges of human trafficking in connection with the incident, the New Arab reported.
The central Mediterranean migration route is one of the deadliest in the world, experts said. As of late June, over 800 people have died or have gone missing and are presumed dead while crossing the sea, according to the United Nations.
With Post wires
