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Suffocating Migrants Beaten Down With Knives

Suffocating Migrants Beaten Down With Knives

People smugglers used knives to subdue a group of migrants who were struggling for air and water in the crammed hold of a ship, according to Italian prosecutors.

Authorities in Sicily have detained 10 people on suspicion of people smuggling and murder after they allegedly held the migrants in an airless hold of a boat this week.

The Swedish ship Poseidon rescued 439 survivors from the boat on Wednesday, but crew members discovered 52 corpses after smashing the vessel's deck.

Survivors from the boat told police the smugglers would force the migrants back with knives if they tried to come out of the hold for air.

"When theses migrants tried to relay their need for air and water, they were mishandled, injured, knifed in a truly fierce way," said Carmine Mosca, the head of the Palermo police squad.

Palermo prosecutor Maurizio Scalia said the detained crew included seven Moroccans, two Syrians and a Libyan.

The migrants were mostly from sub-Saharan Africa - including Sudan, Senegal and Nigeria - but also Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The bodies of the dead arrived in Palermo late on Thursday. Officials say the migrants likely died of asphyxiation.

It comes after hundreds of migrants are feared to have died when two more boats capsized off the Libyan coats.

On Thursday a lorry was found in Austria containing the bodies of 71 migrants , including several children.

The International Office of Migration has recorded 2,432 deaths linked to Mediterranean migrant crossings this year.

The figure is expected to rise as Libyan authorities count the dead from three shipwrecks off the Libyan coast in the past two days.

Scores of smugglers' boats leave Libya every day, packed with migrants trying to reach the safety of Europe.