Photos courtesy of AFP and Reuters
At least 10 migrants trying to reach Italy died when their rubber boat overturned in the southern Mediterranean, the coast guard reported.
Read the following story from the Bangkok Post to learn more about the loss.
The boat, which capsized on March 3, 80km north of Libya, was carrying about 130 people at the time. A coast guard ship in the area managed to rescue most of the migrants. Ten bodies were recovered, the coast guard said.
RISKY BUSINESS
The coast guard ship was already carrying 318 migrants rescued in a previous mission on March 3 before heading to a Sicilian port.
Seven separate missions in a 24-hour period had rescued a total of 941 migrants, including 30 children and 50 women, one of them pregnant, the coast guard explained.
Last February, more than 300 people died trying to cross the sea from Africa to Italy in a one-week period. Most of the boats leave from Libya, which is in a state of near-anarchy and where smugglers charge up to US$2,000 (64,800 baht) for the crossing.
RESCUE MISSIONS
Italy ended its large-scale search-and-rescue mission, Mare Nostrum (Latin for ‘Our Sea’), last year because of the cost and amid criticism from some who said it merely encouraged people to make the crossing.
Mare Nostrum was set up after more than 360 migrants drowned when their boat capsized near the Italian coast in October 2013. It has been replaced by an EU border control mission, Triton, which does not have a specific search-and-rescue mandate and which has fewer ships and a smaller area of operation.
Exercises
Specify whether each of the following words used in the story as a verb, preposition, adverb or adjective.
1. replaced ……………….
2. separate ……………….
3. already ……………….
4. amid ……………….
Vocabulary
- smuggler (n): a person who takes goods into or out of a country illegally
mandate (n): an official order given to somebody to perform a particular task
