Iraqi girl, 16, ‘strangled to death while being raped in front of her mother on sinking migrant boat’

27 June 2024, 12:26

Police have arrested a survivor of a migrant shipwreck on suspicion of raping and murdering a teenage Iraqi girl who was also on board.

The man, also from Iraq, is alleged to have strangled the girl to death in front of her mother while the boat sank.

According to Italian media, the man had just watched his own wife and daughter drown and he ‘vented’ his aggression on the daughter of another survivor.

Italian police said the sailing boat was adrift off Italy when the man "vented his aggression on a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, the daughter of another survivor, leading to her death by suffocation".

Twelve people were rescued from the migrant ship, which police believe had around 70 people on board. The survivors were brought to the port of Roccella Ionica on June 17 last week. One woman died after being brought to shore, bringing the death toll to 36. Of the bodies found at sea, 15 were children.

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The man who is accused of murder has been detained in a prison in Catanzaro, in southern Italy.

The girl was making her way to Europe with her mother, who survived the disaster and reported what happened to police.

Dramatic details of what happened on board have begun to emerge.

The boat’s engine reportedly exploded, leaving it adrift, before it submerged with only the mast visible.

The ship originated in Turkey and was wrecked about 120 nautical miles off the southern coast of Italy.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organisation for Migration and UN children's agency UNICEF said the migrants on the ship came from Iran, Syria and Iraq.