Fallen soldiers’ families to get SR1m each

Families of Saudi soldiers who died while confronting Houthi rebels during the ongoing Operation Decisive Storm will receive SR1 million in compensation. Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman, chief of the royal court, has given his directives to authorities in this respect.
An official statement issued on Sunday identified the martyred soldiers as Ahmed Omar Al-Shahri, Khaled Ali Al-Majhali and Ibrahim Al-Amiri. Families of soldiers Ali bin Hamoud Al-Hamdi and Masawi Ali Al-Deebi, who died in an accident while on duty will also receive SR1 million each, it added.
Offering his condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers, Prince Mohammed emphasized that the Defense Ministry would take care of the families. National Guard Minister Prince Miteb bin Abdullah also offered his condolences to the families. He ordered a medical team from King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Jeddah to treat Abdul Rahman Qahl, son of a military officer who is currently taking part in the Decisive Storm, in Jazan.
Asir Gov. Prince Faisal bin Khaled visited the family of Jamaan bin Mohammed Al-Habbabi, who died fighting the Houthis, at the slain soldier’s residence in Abha and conveyed the condolences of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muqrin

700 feared dead in the boat capsized off Libya

A smuggler’s boat crammed with hundreds of people overturned off Libya’s coast as rescuers approached, causing what could be the Mediterranean’s deadliest known migrant tragedy and intensifying pressure on the European Union to finally meet demands for decisive action.

Survivor accounts of the number aboard the 20-metre vessel varied, with the Italian Coast Guard saying that the capsized boat had a capacity for “hundreds” of people.

Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers. Earlier, authorities said a survivor told them 700 migrants were aboard.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said authorities were “not in a position to confirm or verify” how many were on board when the boat set out from Libya.

Eighteen ships joined the rescue effort, but only 28 survivors and 24 bodies had been pulled from the water by nightfall, Renzi said.

These small numbers make more sense if hundreds of people were locked in the hold, because with so much weight down below, “surely the boat would have sunk,” said General Antonino Iraso, of the Italian Border Police, which has deployed boats in the operation.

The incident happened in an area just off Libyan waters, 193km south of Lampedusa island, according to a report in the Times of Malta‘s website.

Rescue boats deployed

Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from Catania in Sicily, off Italy’s southern coast, said while the weather was sunny and clear on Saturday, it later turned overcast and cloudy, which meant that the seas were choppy.

He said reports indicated that the approach of a Portuguese-flagged container ship sent by Italy’s coast guard prompted people on board the boat to shift to one side, upsetting the weight distribution and causing it to sink.

The container ship’s crew “immediately deployed rescue boats, gangway, nets and life rings,” a spokesman for its owner said.

United Nations refugee agency spokeswoman Carlotta Sami tweeted that according to one survivor, the boat had set out with 700 migrants aboard. When it overturned, “the people ended up in the water, with the boat on top of them,” Sami said.

Prosecutor Giovanni Salvi told The Associated Press that the Bangladeshi survivor said about 300 people were locked in the hold by smugglers when the vessel set out. He said some 200 of the boat’s passengers were women and several dozen were children.

Salvi stressed that there was no confirmation yet of the man’s account and that the investigation was ongoing.

Unified response

Meanwhile, calls by Italy’s Renzi for a more unified response from the EU were echoed by France, Spain, Germany and Britain ahead of Monday’s EU meeting in Luxembourg, where foreign ministers scrambled to add stopping the smugglers to their agenda.

“Europe can do more and Europe must do more,” said Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament.

“It is a shame and a confession of failure how many countries run away from responsibility and how little money we provide for rescue missions.”

Europe must mobilise “more ships, more overflights by aircraft,” French President Francois Hollande told French TV on Sunday. “Words won’t do anymore,” Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, told a political rally.

Meanwhile, Renzi rejected calls by some Italian legislators for a naval blockade. That would only “wind up helping the smugglers” since military ships would be there to rescue any migrants, and they wouldn’t be able to return passengers to violence in Libya.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the tragedy as an urgent reminder “of the critical need for a robust search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean,” in a statement released on Sunday.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose nation joined the search effort, called it the “biggest human tragedy of the last few years”.

Pope Francis lent his moral authority to the political calls for action by urging “the international community to act decisively and promptly, to prevent similar tragedies from occurring again”.

Since the start of 2014, Italy has rescued nearly 200,000 people at sea, including 11,000 arrivals in the eight days until Saturday.

At least 900 people have died trying to reach Europe this year, before this latest sinking.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies