TRAGEDY// A migrant ship carrying as many as 950 people capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, north of Libya and south of the Italian island of Lampedusa on April 19. 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. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat labeled the disaster the “biggest human tragedy of the last few years”.

The 66-foot vessel may have overturned because migrants rushed to one side of the craft late at night when they saw an approaching Portuguese-flagged container ship, the King Jacob, which was sent to the area by Italy’s Coast Guard. The ship’s crew immediately deployed rescue boats, gangway, nets and life rings and later 28 other ships joined the rescue effort, but only 28 survivors and 24 bodies were pulled from the water by nightfall