Smugglers threw asylum seekers into Mediterranean - Al-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Tom Rollins

Tom Rollins

Sep 18, 2014

Palestinians throw roses in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Gaza City on September 18, 2014 in mourning over the loss of fellow Palestinians who had boarded a boat to Europe that sank off Malta last week. In one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks on record, the boat, with 500 people on board, was intentionally capsized by traffickers as it made its way from Egypt to Italy. Only 10 people are known to have survived, among them four Palestinians from the 100 Gazans believed to have been on board. AFP — Palestinians throw roses in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza City in mourning over the loss of fellow Palestinians who had boarded a boat to Europe that sank off Malta last week, Sept. 18, 2014. — AFP/Getty Images/Mohammed Abed

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — The journey started like any other.

The migrants paid the smugglers. Buses collected them in groups of around 100 and took them to Damietta, a port on the northeastern edge of the Nile Delta. On Sept. 6, the several hundred migrants from Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Sudan and Syria left Damietta, bound for Italy.

The mother of Palestinian Shukri al-Assouli holds a picture of him with his wife and daughter at her house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip September 18, 2014. Assouli, 33, set off from Alexandria on September 6 with his wife and two children on a ship with 400 migrants on board that was destined for Italy, but the vessel sank and he was rescued by a Japanese commercial ship and taken to Greece. His family is missing. A devastating war with Israel has swollen the number of Palestinians in the Gaza

Fatwas issued to stop illegal migration from Gaza

Hana Salah

Hana Salah

A group of Palestinians prepare to throw roses in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Gaza City on September 18, 2014 in mourning over the loss of fellow Palestinians who had boarded a boat to Europe that sank off Malta last week. In one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks on record, the boat, with 500 people on board, was intentionally capsized by traffickers as it made its way from Egypt to Italy. Only 10 people are known to have survived, among them four Palestinians from the 100 Gazans believed to ha

Escaping Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians drown

Shlomi Eldar

Shlomi Eldar

Survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town

Syria to Libya to the EU: how people-smugglers operate

by Rouba El Husseini and Lisa Golden

by Rouba El Husseini and Lisa Golden

Lebanese men look towards the sea near the Arida border crossing with Syria

Lebanon migrant ship death toll rises to 94

Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse